


Where The Winds Sigh

by Chainofprospit



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Birthday sexcapades, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Half domestic character exploration, Half over-cerebral porn, James has an active imagination, James tends to get carried away, M/M, Other, Polyamory, Thomas decidedly doesn't mind, Threesome - F/M/M, background Flint/Miranda, excessively introspective smut, first gay encounter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-09 04:17:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 32,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12268722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainofprospit/pseuds/Chainofprospit
Summary: The last levee of tradition belaying him gave way, and with it any sense of reticence. James could feel his furrowed brow falling, his chin lifting, without needing to will it so. I am going to be kissed by Thomas Hamilton, he thought, and in the next second he was.--We've seen the moment that James and Thomas finally kissed; this is what I imagine comes after.





	1. Only Hymns Upon Your Lips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set previous to the series, during and immediately following the Thomas-James kiss scene by the table. I haven't written smut for ages, so bear with me if it's a little less than exceptional. 
> 
> Unbetaed, so any mistakes are mine.
> 
> EDIT: I forgot about cravats and the fact that Thomas was unwigged like twice lol so uh. That's fixed. My bad.

Somehow in this instant it was exquisitely, brilliantly clear to the lieutenant that his life had always been heading towards this.

The assignment. Meeting Thomas. The fight in the tavern. The debates. The salons. The dinners. Miranda. Every moment of the past few months seemed so utterly purposeful now, possessing a transparency that had never before known occupancy in the life of James McGraw. Before now, there had been no storyline, no overarching narrative, no distant future nor notable past. He had been heading, yes, on a path, but a path to nowhere in particular, just forward, just further into the world, just however deep he must pursue to validate his own presence in the tapestry. He had no goals, no wants or desires. There was little meaning.

Until now. And he could see that it had been months coming, flickered refractions of his growing investment in Thomas’ plans, his dedication to his vision, the unyielding contract binding him to the other’s conviction. It all made an odd sort of sense. Right now Thomas was close, intimately close, warm firm hands on his shoulders, fraternal, but more than that. Brothers, comrades embraced each other like they cared not for their relative flaws; Thomas’ liquid gaze bespoke a disbelief that James possessed any. James’ chin had drawn back, instinctively, fearful, perplexed – not necessarily by the idea that Thomas was going to kiss him, as he was almost certain was true, but by the idea that this was exactly the destination they had all been hurtling towards since day one. How could this have passed him by? How could it have been true the whole time, and only just alit into his awareness in the past half-instance?

Miranda watched on from the table and James was not stirred at all. Everything was startlingly… right.

The last levee of tradition belaying him gave way, and with it any sense of reticence. James could feel his furrowed brow falling, his chin lifting, without needing to will it so. _I am going to be kissed by Thomas Hamilton_ , he thought, and in the next second he was.

In mere seconds his tether to conscious thought had dissolved away.

* * *

Later, when James was able to return to the moment in memory (he had not been entirely sure of his connection to reality when it was happening), he remembered it like this.

Thomas had kissed him, once, twice with no breath, slow, but not fearful, like he knew James might be afraid, and yet trusted that he wouldn’t pull away. And he hadn’t pulled away. He’d leaned into their sealed lips, eyes lowered like shutters, and Thomas’ hand had been on his neck, he thought. He was certain of the memory that he, James, had found his hands lifting to hold the sides of Thomas’ coat, carefully curving his palms to him, like some answer he hadn’t known the meaning of to a question he wasn’t sure had been made.

He remembered not breathing when Thomas pulled away, not because his lungs were seized or lacking air, but simply because everything seemed still, like Thomas had spirited the breath right out from him, left him airless, perfect. He remembered the cool lack on wet lips left parted, the sensation that his brow had knitted again in something less like protest and more like anticipation of the daunting unknown, or perhaps pure emotion, or perhaps sweet need. He remembered the expression in Thomas’ eyes, warm and sure like embers, like the conviction of God.

He remembered when he breathed again, a soft exhale, and followed Thomas’ gaze which had glided to his wife, who was sitting so serene and silent at the dining room table, not unsmiling, something in her eyes. So closeby. James had questions, but none that he was able to articulate at the moment, none so pressing as to outweigh this.

“Miranda,” Thomas had said, cheeks warm with vigor and something magnificently soft and certain in his voice, was his thumb still at James’ jaw? He was frozen, reverent – “I was hoping I could be the one to take the lieutenant to bed tonight, this time… with consent.”

Lord Hamilton’s eyes flickered back to James, then, seeking, though he had seemed so confident, something—he needn’t seek. James knew what he thought Thomas knew, at that moment, which was that they were inevitable. That this was how it was meant to be. He didn’t need to nod, just met the man’s eyes with anticipation but no hesitation. The minuscule release of tension around Thomas’ eyes fascinated him. In the meantime, Miranda stood, gracious and graceful, brushing her skirts.

She found her way to the partners. “Of course,” she said, softly, granting her permission as though it had not existed unsaid. “Please.” She inclined her head, ever the understanding wife, then lingered on the two of them, contemplative, one hand having found the small of James’ back, the other resting over her husband’s hand. After a pause, she kissed each of them on the cheek – Thomas, then James – and then withdrew, sealing her lips in indescribable expression only halfway resembling a smile, and turned to make her exit.

Thomas’ other hand had risen to cup James’ neck, then, both hands cradling his skull, holding him within his gaze, which was now fixed back to him and only him. James’ fingers found Thomas’, gliding over them, holding them fast. He closed his eyes and Thomas kissed him once more, deeply, and once they had once more drawn apart, Thomas grasped James’ hand and led him out of the dining room. Like a trance, James followed, his movements certain, white noise in the back of his head.

The walking was the part which had seemed like a dream, a maze of glossy hallways, however few, dancing in shadows, soft and blue. Then they had entered Thomas’ bedroom, and Thomas let go of James’ hand to shut the door. With a click, everything seemed to go silent and pregnant and still.

This was the part James did not struggle to recall. This was when it had become real.

“You’re beautiful,” had been Thomas’ first words behind closed doors, lifting his knuckles to brush across James’ jaw and watching them trace his skin. He looked for all the world like a painter examining his work.

James let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. At first he was unsure that his voice could be summoned out of his throat, he felt struck dumb; but he managed, to his surprise, too easily, with barely a scratch to his words: “You’re – startling.”

To his credit, Thomas’ head tilted only slightly, though he did pause his touch. “... in a bad way?”

“No,” bubbled James’ response, half-laughed. “Not at all. I’m startled by my own lack of reticence. I find I’ve already accepted this.” He was hardly even sure what ‘this’ was, just that it was right, and that he craved to keep Thomas’ intimacy.

“Accepted is not quite encouraged,” pointed out Thomas, kind but wry.

James didn’t know how to encourage this. He didn’t know the words or where to go. He swallowed and looked down, furrowing his brow, then voiced his feelings the only way he knew how. “... Please?”

Something in Thomas’ expression glinted, betraying appreciation, or curiosity, or both. He dropped his hand from James’ jaw, then moved towards the dresser against the wall, steadily untying his cravat and placing it on the flat surface there. Turning back to James, he thoughtfully traced a finger over the other’s shoulder. James watched him, hypnotized.

“Take your ribbon out.”

With surprisingly steady hands, James obeyed, folding the ribbon twice and placing it neatly on the same dresser surface. He looked to Thomas again, like a pupil.

Thomas’ thumb traced his own lower lip, a habit for when he was thinking. “... Your coat,” he stated next. “Take it off, and hang it.”

Unfailingly, though not without watching him, James obliged.

“And mine,” said Thomas next, holding out his arms. Sweeping up behind him, James removed Thomas’ coat like a dutiful attendant, hanging it on the hook next to his own. Increasingly warm with temptation and anticipation, he let his fingers linger during this one, marveling at the breadth of Thomas’ shoulders, the nape of his neck.

Thomas lowered his eyelashes, not failing to respond. “Shoes, now,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “Mine, then yours.”

An unquestioning James lowered himself to a kneel as Thomas sat on the edge of the bed, propped up by his arms. He caressed the sitting man’s calf, slowly gliding his fingers down to his ankle, and gripping the heeled leather shoe, which he gripped and carefully guided off; he then repeated this process with the other leg. Normally he would never be caught kneeling for another man unless custom necessitated it; tonight, the thought did not even enter his mind. With a brief surge of daring, James pressed his lips to Thomas’ stockinged knee. The man above him closed his eyes briefly, letting out an almost indiscernible sigh.

Having unclad Thomas’ feet, James then removed his own footwear, placing both pairs by the coat stand, then rising to his full height and straightening, hands behind his back à la military stance, awaiting further orders. He appreciated Thomas’ lack of rush almost as much as the lack of commentary; his anxiety was slowly ebbing, his movements acquiring a faint sense of play, like flirting. A blooming awareness in his head informed him that this _was_ flirting.

If that were true, mused James, he may indeed have been courting Thomas’ attention for quite some time now.

A still sitting Thomas, seeming more comfortable as well now that the bulkier of his accoutrements had been removed, began to undo his waistcoat. James only watched him, resisting the urge to wet his lips. It was strange, the intimacy which felt fraternally familiar was taking on a new light the color of which James could not yet make out. What would it be like? Kissing his friend?

But he already had the answer to that, given only minutes ago, in the dining room in full light. It hadn’t been kissing a friend at all. It had been kissing Thomas, so incredibly deeper in color and more shameless in sensation than he could have imagined it to be.

Belatedly, with warm cheeks, James realized that Thomas had shed his waistcoat successfully and was now stood, approaching him to do the same. He unclasped his hands, letting them loiter at Thomas’ sides instead, thumbs gracing the plane of his hips beneath the breeches as Thomas unfastened him, first the clasps of his waistcoat, then the neatly tied cravat. Then he lifted his hands, letting the garments be slid off and to the floor with Thomas’ help.

For a moment, the two stood in front of one another, taking in each other’s still-dressed-but-less-layered forms. Though there were no words, sound existed in the form of shallow breaths, each exhale laced with anticipation. Antsy, James was almost about to break the silence, but was beat to it by Thomas.

“Kiss me, James McGraw,” he said, with a new and lower layer to his voice that James had not heard before, less restrained, more desirous. Striding forward, James obeyed, capturing his lips like a man possessed. In an instant, Thomas’ arms had risen to encircle the other’s torso, pressing them together, all pretense at civility abandoned. James didn’t care. He didn’t want civility, he just wanted Thomas.

With James gripping close-cropped blond hair and Thomas caressing long ginger locks, they compelled one another, exchanging lips and teeth and tongue, and – no one had ever devoured James’ lower lip quite like that before. He retaliated by capturing Thomas’ tongue, scraping with his teeth, only to find the same muscle plundering his mouth with fervor, eliciting a throaty moan, as his fingers tightened at the nape of Thomas’ neck. Thomas’ hands, in the meantime, were skimming down James’ front from his collar to his breeches, pressing hotly until somehow James’ back was encountering wall, and he arched against it, grateful for the support as Thomas’ kisses traveled from lips to jaw to earlobe – oh, _god_ , if anything was a sin about this it was that. James could feel himself swelling in his underthings, eyes fluttering back as Thomas’ tongue teased his ear and unable to do anything in response except grip his back tighter and roll his hips forward, half-unconsciously.

It was then that James noticed he could feel Thomas’ arousal next to his. Hot, a pressing bulge. Thomas’ mouth was at his neck, wet and filthy, and between harrowed pants, James considered the novelty of this. More particularly, how it failed to feel particularly novel at all, the newness giving way to the vastly overpowering _good_. He knew and had known that he possessed hopelessly devout love for Thomas Hamilton, and was now aware that Hamilton both admired and wanted him, but he hadn’t had any prediction as to the hedonistic pleasure of it all; not in the approximately thirty seconds he’d had to contemplate the situation after he’d first understood the imminence of their kiss.

“Fuck,” he breathed, as Thomas applied a particularly sharp bite to his collarbone. The latter lifted his head faintly, licking his lips.

“Yes?” he inquired breathlessly.

James knew it wasn’t what he was asking, but his reply nonetheless was a firm, “ _Yes_ ,” as he recaptured Thomas’ mouth with his own, thumb cradling his jaw. As Thomas gave way with a soft sigh, James found himself able to marvel at how much the other had been _wanting_ this, wondering for how long, how inevitable this had been. Wondering if he’d known all along it would come to this. Then wondering, once more, what ‘this’ would be.

“Thomas?” he inquired between kisses, index finger drawing circles on the nape of the other’s neck.

“James?” answered Thomas, and James couldn’t help but be struck for a moment with unanticipated pleasure. It seemed so rare that Thomas call him by his first name.

“My lord,” continued James, as if to play off this fact, tangling his free fingers with Thomas’s and lifting them to his mouth, kissing the knuckles, watching Thomas swallow.

“Lieutenant,” whispered Thomas, letting his thumb brush over James’ lip, watching it as though captivated.

“This… is your bed, not Miranda’s.”

Thomas watched him, toying with his lip still. His brow nonetheless shifted inquiringly.

“I don’t… know my role. My, per say... duties.” How strange, to suddenly be the mistress, rather than he with whom a lady betrayed her husband (or, in some cases, didn’t). It was – different. A sense not of partaking in a lover but belonging to one. He almost wondered how long he had been possessed by Thomas, but found the question fruitless; he had been his, always, from day one. Regardless of whether he knew his future. And now, in the bedroom, being touched by him at last… James, perhaps, would have felt fulfilled even to be kissed and caressed for the rest of the night, but there was, ever more distinctly, yet more to be had. Everything to be had, and none of it known to him.

He was fairly determined to know it.

Thomas hadn’t noticed James’ internal musing, as no time had passed. “Do you love me?” he asked.

The question was absurd in how incredibly sure he was. “Yes,” stated James, with fervor. Thomas, above all people, held his loyalty, his love, and his faith.

Thomas’ eyes crinkled in delight. “Then that is your only duty,” he stated. “And do you… want me?” His fingers had lowered to trace James’ collarbone rather than his lips, then skimmed lower still to his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. “To have me, to be had by me, to let me give you pleasure, to feel me inside of you?”

James closed his eyes, simmering hot and affected by Thomas’ painted words. Could he be said to want a consummation he neither knew nor understood? A curious mystery. How it was to lie with a man he could only imagine. But that wasn’t the real question. The real question was wanting Thomas, to have his intimacy, to be with him, carnally known by him, to possess his physical self as surely as the other had captivated his mind. He remembered, too, the brush of their arousals against each other, and that it had been _good_. He breathed out through his nose, opening his eyes once more to meet Thomas’ gaze.

 _I am yours_ , he opened his mouth to say. “I can’t promise I’ll be any good,” is what came out instead.

Thomas chuckled in that disarming manner of his. “I somehow think I’d like you anyway.”

The corner of James’ mouth twitched into a smile, a teasing confidence slowly encroaching. “I can certainly try my best, my lord.”

Thomas’ eyes always seemed to glitter a little bit at that title, and he lifted a thumb to unconsciously brush his own lower lip. “I’d like that, too.”

Compelled by an instinct, James swiped Thomas’ hand from him, bringing it to his own mouth again. He took enough of a step backwards to find a seat on the bed, drawing Thomas close with him, and wrapping his lips around the other’s thumb, swiping a tongue across it, and then his other fingers, one by one. Thomas’ dark, swimming pupils and flushing cheeks rewarded him and he took his index and middle fingers deeper into his mouth, suckling them, until at last letting them slip out with a soft sound and placing Thomas’ salivated fingers on his own chest, along with the rest of his hand.

“Well?” said James, breathless and bold, scooting back onto the bed. “Are you coming, or not?”

“I should have known you’d torment me,” exhaled Thomas, though clearly without spite, and he crawled onto the bed with James, peppering his neck and clavicle with kisses, reaching what he could of his sternum through the other’s shirt, laying him back so as best to receive his full attentions. “That, it seems, will be your role.”

“Gladly,” said James, head arching back and fingers wishing they could find purchase in hair Thomas had much too little of. The blond was slow and deliberate despite James’ burning skin, and James’ want for Thomas and gratefulness for the pacing warred in his chest. He settled for letting his fingers twist in the collar of Thomas’ shirt, tugging wordlessly. Getting the message, Thomas lifted from James’ chest, wearing that dimpled smile that always struck him dizzy. It took but one acrobatic movement to remove his shirt, dropping it aside, at which point he laid a hand cautiously on James’ ribs, glancing at him inquisitively.

 _Please_ , James had to resist saying again. Instead he nodded, taking a moment to shift himself so that his torso was no longer flat against the bed. Two pairs of hands hurried to untuck the shirt and untangle it from arms and head, whereafter it joined Thomas’ discarded garment over the edge of the bed. Then their lips met again, along with their chests; Thomas’ fingers at James’ spine, gripping him close, while James held one hand flat against Thomas’ clavicle between them, the other curled at the small of his back.

The planes of Thomas’ chest were firm and unfamiliar pressed against him. James savored the sensation, taking in each bump of skin and the feeling of the other’s breathing echoing his own while Thomas kissed him again and again. At last his companion broke from his mouth to trail again downwards, and James’ ears grew hot at the mere memory of Thomas’ tongue on him. The kisses on his neck were warm, soft and brusque, down to his collarbone where he received another fond nip, and now further to the freckled expanse which was now bared for access. James allowed himself to be laid back, reclining on the bed, as Thomas kissed warm echoes down his sternum, across his pectoral, to his nipples, which – _yes_ . James had forgotten that he enjoyed that. Breathing heavily, he let his head fall back and focused on feeling every touch, every swipe of the tongue. When teeth were added, an obscene “ _Aah—_ ” slipped out of him, to which Thomas responded by lowering not two inches and bite-suckling a bruise on pale skin.

James licked his dry lips, wondering how Thomas could be so confident. Had he done this before? The thought elicited an unbidden flood of cool unpleasantness over his mind, finding that he didn't like that idea. Surely not. Surely he wasn't one in a line of many. That didn't bid the way Thomas had looked at him in the dining room. Right? A niggling voice reminded that it _did_ bid with Thomas’ unending confidence, how he knew exactly what to do.

Thomas, of course, was always confident. It was part of his charm, and his most endearing flaw.

Still, the voice asked. Are you special?

James did not like the question. If he wasn't special, he would make it so. His hand found the hair of Thomas, whose attentive mouth was currently playing his ribs like piano keys, and tried to guide him up with his fingers. Thomas obeyed, wetting his reddened lips—God James wanted those on him—and tilting his head at James curiously, chest rising and falling with shallow breath.

Thoughts competing for attention, James had to take a moment to consider what to do next. He could turn the tables, press Thomas down and worship him until he, too, was flushed and dizzy. He could let Thomas have him completely (recalling with a shiver Thomas’ words: _let me give you pleasure, feel me inside of you_ ).

Instead he found himself asking, thankfully with steady voice, “You've… have you, done this before?”

Thomas let out a half laugh, and shifted back into a proper sitting position, observing James. “‘This’—been with men?”

It was such a preferable term to ‘practiced sodomy,’ and James vowed to remember it. “Have you?”

Thomas pursed his lips at this, and James watched with unending curiosity, wondering what there was to consider about it.

“Else than here, I have,” he said after a brief thought. “Once or twice, I confess. Dalliances.”

Dalliances. James rolled the word around on his tongue, in his head. What did that mean?

“You seem to know what to do,” was his baleful reply, remembering not minutes ago when he had been ready to rely on Thomas to teach him everything, already assuming somehow that he was learned in this area.

Thomas’ hand sought James’ jaw, lifting his gaze to meet his own. “I've been thinking about this for a long time,” he said, half in a whisper. “Enough to be … very ready.”

It was a better, more invigorating reply than James could have conceivably concocted. He knew then that Thomas had his trust here, as well, and that he wanted what was to take place with him, to the fullest extent.

“It's alright if you aren't, perhaps… as ready?” Thomas was saying, and to counter that presumption, James shuffled to lean himself against the headboard of the bed, then pressed a hand at the base of Thomas skull, drawing him in towards his neck. Kiss me here, the action said. I trust you, it said. Have me.

Thomas obliged, attaching lips and teeth to the skin of James throat, suckling what might become a bruise there. James sighed encouragingly, hands roaming the expanse of Thomas’ back.

After too much time Thomas’ hand at last came to rest at James’ crotch, pressing a palm there, cautious. James hoped the hitch in his breath and the tightening of nails against Thomas’ shoulder would be read as approval, and they were. Thomas began to rub him through his breeches, slowly at first but with increasing pressure, and James, legs splayed, could only swallow and breathe quicker and shift his hips towards him. When Thomas unfastened the breeches and moved to lower his mouth to tease him through his underthings, James groaned softly. When he finally slid his hand beneath the fabric, palm-to-skin, and wrapped his fingers around his erection, James bit his own hand and accidentally knocked his skull back against the headboard.

Soon they had both managed to rid themselves of stockings, underthings and breeches, Thomas teasing James’ cock most infuriatingly and James caressing and squeezing the flesh of Thomas’ thighs and buttocks. Determined to make himself useful, James insisted on maneuvering Thomas on his back against the pillows, that he might make good use of his mouth. He started by kissing up the inside of his thighs, eventually reaching the top of Thomas’ legs wherein his arousal perched from amid a bed of tangled blond hairs. Cautious, experimentally, he wrapped a hand around Thomas’ erection, tugging out a few strokes. It was more intuitive than he’d expected, so similar to the way he handled his own cock in the privacy of his home. Perhaps this wouldn't be hard. A faintly flushed Thomas seemed uninterested in protest, one knee cocked and his eyes closed, breathing faint puffs of air. James continued stroking him carefully, then pressed his mouth to the head for a tentative lick.

He was rewarded with a muffled note of pleasure from above. Oh, good. He contemplated the taste – musky, almost sour, strangely arousing – before trying again, licking a stripe up the underside of Thomas’ shaft, then wrapping his lips around the head like he had done with Thomas’ thumb earlier (though the girth of one notably outweighed the other). Suddenly there was a hand in his hair, faintly twisting, though not forceful. Pleased to be succeeding in pleasuring his partner, James swept his tongue around Thomas’ head, suckling softly before pressing down to take more of him.

He wondered if this was how women felt when servicing men – quiet, enveloped warmth, a little awkward to maneuver, uncomfortably aware of his teeth. It wasn't altogether unpleasant, although he was also fortunate for a considerate partner who wasn't pushing or choking him. Drawing back up, he took a breath, licking his lips, and then attached his lips to wet and lick the rest of the shaft, enveloping the head again after a moment and attempting the bobbing he knew women to do. It seemed to working, based on the caressing fingers in his hair, and he stretched his tongue further, before curiously lifting his gaze to observe Thomas’ reaction.

Thomas’ eyes were obscene with fixation, lip between his teeth and skin painted in a pleasant sheen. James had never seen such a picture of temptation in his life. He sucked again on the head of Thomas’ cock, then let it slip out from his lips, lifting himself with his arms to crawl up and claim Thomas in a hungry kiss. Thomas moaned into his mouth, pressing closer to him now that their hips and arousals were once more aligned, and James’ breath caught, feverish with pleasure, as Thomas gripped both of their erections together and stroked them clumsily between their two bodies. Drawing back from the kiss to hang his head over Thomas’ shoulder, James panted hotly, peppered with grunts, against Thomas’ neck.

Once he had worked them into a state of untenable lust, Thomas nipped the shell of James’ ear, triggering a pleasured shudder. “I'd like to –” whispered Thomas, stilted from stimulation – “kiss you – somewhere new. Is that okay?”

Having difficulty forming full sentences, James only nodded, though he nearly regretted it when Thomas’ face was at once removed from his space, leaving him hungry for more contact. The regret quickly faded, however, when Thomas’ mouth found him again significantly lower. James’ hand fled to his mouth, a bite muffling his quickened breath as Thomas’ lips explored his hip, his inner thigh, and he resisted a shiver as the other’s broad hands guided his legs up, spreading apart his cheeks. When a tongue pressed, warm and foreign, at his entrance, he bit down harder on his hand, undoubtedly leaving marks. Though the practice wasn’t something he had _never_ heard of, it was indeed, as Thomas had insinuated, new. Thomas’ nose was buried in his scrotum, and his _tongue_ was – well – James hadn’t ever considered the strength of the tongue as a muscle, but now as it probed him, strange but not unpleasant, he couldn’t help but be impressed. His hand was decidedly inadequate at suppressing his groans, he also noticed.  

Thomas likely noticed this too, if the teasing sweep of his thumb over James’ thigh was any indication. He ran one hand up and down James’ leg, resulting in a jerk of the muscle, reacting to two different sensations. In a moment he lifted his head, finding James’ gaze again with glinting eyes that said he knew _exactly_ what he was doing. James found himself powerless to summon any of his previous discomfort at the idea; indeed, his brain seemed to consist of something resembling a warm liquid pool of dizziness and desire. He let his hand fall from his mouth, staring back at Thomas.

“I’d very much like to fuck you now, if you want that,” said Thomas’ lips, or at least James thought it was Thomas’ lips, despite the fact that Thomas wore the visage of an angel and those words belonged to the tongue of a devil.

Or maybe not. Maybe angels fucked. James had never been very religious, but if he was to kneel and worship anyone (unbidden images flashed into his mind of his hands caressing Thomas’ stockings, his fingers removing his shoes, his mouth on his cock) it would very likely be the man now gazing at him from between his legs.

“Yes,” he said simply, and Thomas rewarded him with a stripe of tongue licked up his thigh—fuck—and a kiss at the corner of his pelvis, before crawling back that he might stand from the bed.

As Thomas gravitated to a vanity dresser in the corner of the room, James took the opportunity to shift up to more of a sitting position against the pillows, watching the other’s easy gait. Nude, sprawled on Thomas’ bed, kissing him, being his lover – this had not been anything he could have imagined for his future.

Right now, he could not imagine belonging anywhere but here.

It should be much more terrifying than the small curl of anticipation he could successfully summon. It wasn’t. He remembered the admiral's warning about the world he was entering, about London, about the political drama, about Lord Hamilton. The idea seemed laughable now. As if he could feel anything but at home here. Even unsettling, even knew, even dauntingly unknown, it was somehow… fateful.

As if summoned by the very thought of fate, Thomas reappeared by the bed with a sealed container in his hands, putting it on the bedside nightstand and, hand finding James’ jaw, drawing the lieutenant in for a kiss. Closing his eyes, James obliged. It was more natural every time.

“Lay back,” instructed Thomas, and this command was less charged and more gentle, an empathetic instructor. Breath shallow with anticipation, James obeyed, letting his knees fall and splay open. Smiling, Thomas traced his fingers down James’ chest, shifting so that he had one knee on the bed, and could lean in to kiss him once more. James returned the kiss warmly, achingly, and frowned when Thomas pulled away again, though he quickly realized this was so that he could unscrew the stopper and access whatever was in the container.

“Pomatum,” Thomas clarified, noticing his gaze. “For… ease and comfort.”

Ah. Right. That… made sense.

After dipping his fingers, Thomas crawled back onto the bed again, and James lifted his chest to meet him, craving again the warmth of his contact. Thomas kissed his mouth, then his jaw, then his neck, where he lingered, lavishing James’ skin with soft bites and gentle suckles, perhaps trying to avoid unseemly bruises, a consideration James thought he might rather be ignored.

Meanwhile Thomas’ hand was shifting down, between James’ legs, where he wrapped his fingers around the other’s still-erect length and stroked him. A pleasurable exhalation tumbled from James’ lips, and he skimmed his own hand down Thomas’ back, finding purchase along his spine. Thomas continued to caress him for a moment longer, then moved his oil-slickened fingers down to where his tongue had just been, rubbing at the tight entrance between his ass cheeks. A moan betrayed James’ lips as he shifted his hips closer, fingers tightening. Thomas, too, was affected; he panted with effort against James’ neck between kisses, then crooking his hand to angle that he might press one finger in.

The fingers somehow felt less strange than the tongue had, but no less pleasurable. The oil helped warm and loosen the ring of muscle as Thomas worked it, pushing digits inside, slow and alien and eliciting a thrill of heat and arousal throughout James’ whole body. He had mouthed down to his chest now, kissing each nipple, and seemed less wary about bruises on James’ chest, suckling and nipping across his pectorals, which James did not fail to appreciate. The stretching seemed to last endless minutes, for which James was both grateful and impatient: he missed having Thomas up near him, where he could kiss him; he wanted to feel him. (How could his dependence on the other have gone from professional admiration to sensual craving so quickly? Or had it been quick at all?) “Thomas,” he managed to breathe, licking his dry lips and swallowing. Thomas stretched his fingers to prod the bundle of nerves within him in response, evoking an unfettered moan. “Fuck. _Thomas…_ ”

Finally Thomas removed his lips from James’ chest, looking up at him. “Lieutenant,” he answered coyly, and James could see that the game was on again, could tell from the look in Thomas’ eyes that he was enjoying himself far too much.

James could not say differently of himself. “My lord,” he murmured, the invitation clear and eyes locked with Thomas’. “... _please_.”

James could see from the warmth of Thomas’ cheeks that he was affected by this tact. “‘Please’...?” Thomas repeated, prompting, wetting his lips and allowing his gaze to travel the length of James’ chest, up to his arced neck and square jaw, meeting his eyes again.

James fell silent, brows tightening ever so faintly, wordlessly begging a reprieve – and Thomas granted it. Soft lips befell his as Thomas’ hand was removed, and James could hear the soft scrape of the jar being accessed again, and the faint _shwick_ -ing sounds of Thomas coating himself in the oily substance, pressing more kisses as he did so. After a moment, Thomas pulled back to appraise James, breathless and anticipatory. His dry hand lifted to drag its knuckles gently down James’ cheek, communicating something like adoration, something which made James’ breath hitch and his heart seem to thud louder in his ears.

“It may be more comfortable on your stomach,” he murmured, watching James’ eyes. James shook his head impulsively.

“No. Like this,” he affirmed, and was granted a hungry, desirous expression in return for his assertion. Thomas kissed him wordlessly.

When Thomas’ cock finally pushed to sheath itself inside him, James understood all at once that the tongue and the fingers had been preparation, not just stimulation – as though anything could have prepared him for this. A sound akin to a groan was torn from him immediately, and his legs automatically lifted; he hooked his calves the best he could around Thomas’ back, aiming for the most efficient angle to receive him with minimal discomfort. The girth burned, faintly, and James was suddenly altogether grateful both for the lubricating oil and that Thomas was not too largely endowed.

After having eased in as considerately as he could, Thomas settled, breath noisy with effort. He searched James’ face for signs of pain. James was not lacking in discomfort, but he not could find within him the will for Thomas to extricate himself; to indicate this, he lifted a hand to grip at the nape of Thomas’ neck, pulling him closer. Sighing in anticipatory pleasure and relief, Thomas acquiesced to close the gap between them, biting James’ lower lip. Nonetheless it was another moment before he moved again, drawing slowly backwards before pushing, slick and deep, back in. James’ moan lacked voice, caught in his throat. The stretching burn, this filling sensation, the pressure against sensitive nerves inside him – it was raw and hard, and he could not summon a wish for its end, only a deep seated anticipation for more.

As Thomas slowly approached a rhythm, James found himself adjusting. It was difficult to kiss even facing one another with the rocking movement of pelvises, but Thomas had found James’ ear and was breathing hot, harsh pants into it, suckling at the earlobe unsteadily, and James’ every nerve thrilled at the sensation, a sensitivity he hadn’t known he’d had. Thomas’ cock inside him was rutting against his prostate at the same time, and James found himself with nails dug sharp against Thomas’ shoulderblades, groaning a “ _Yes_ ” with each thrust, rolling his hips to meet them. Thomas, too, was releasing a series of low, filthy sounds, not ones with words or meaning, but no less enticing against his ear; belatedly, his hand found James’ painfully untouched arousal and gripped it, stroking the other between motions. Flooded with sensations, James curved his head forward and locked his teeth onto the crook between Thomas’ shoulder and neck, muffling his moaned curses in his skin.

If pressed, he couldn’t say for how long they were fucking, but it seemed very quickly that the barrage of overstimulation pressed James past the barrier of restraint and sent him, pulsing, into climax. He remembered clamping his teeth down on Thomas’ skin, nails digging into his back, thighs tightening with the heat of pleasure, spilling over Thomas’ hand, onto himself, leaving a wet, sticky stomach. Thomas had thrust again after that, twice, hotly, with abandon, before removing himself and wringing out his cock with his own hand, squeezing until he, too, stuttered into orgasm, releasing his seed between their two abdomens. Panting, sweat-and-cum-slick, feverishly hot, they both remained as they were for a moment, Thomas slumping over James, James’ head dropped back, no longer attached to the blooming bruise he had left on the other’s neck. It took minutes, with heavy pulses and reddened lips, to retain a semblance of steady breathing again; when they had, Thomas carefully extricated himself from the other’s arms, sitting up reluctantly. James’ rear ached, felt stretched beyond repair; he failed to consider this sensation with displeasure.

“Be right back,” murmured Thomas, and James, still too overcome to form words, only watched him as he stood from the bed and disappeared quickly down the hall. Very shortly he returned with a shallow bowl and cloth, setting them on the nightstand as he made his way back onto the bed, wetting the cloth and using it to clean the remnants of sex from the both of them.

“My love,” said Thomas after a moment, laying himself carefully next to James; it took a moment to realize that was him. An unsteady warmth blossomed in his chest.

“Yes?” James murmured, watching him.

“Are you alright?” His voice was soft, betraying no concern, but James thought he sensed it anyway. In answer, he pushed himself up onto his elbow, pressing his lips to Thomas’ again in a searing kiss. With a pleased sigh, Thomas cupped his neck, suckling his lip, then drew back to rest his forehead against James’. “... good.”

James closed his eyes, savoring the simple contact. They remained like this for a few seconds, until James head seemed too heavy to bear, at which point he lay back again, letting his head fall upon the pillow. Thomas soon followed him, laying on his side, draping an arm across James’ chest; James found his other hand between them, entwining their fingers, lifting it to his lips.

“My lord,” he started, then: “...Thomas.”

“Yes?”

His next words were quiet, like dove wings in the blue night: “I don’t regret it. Any of it.”

With some indescribable expression in his eyes—the talent for which he seemed to share with his wife—Thomas smiled, curling his arm around him. “Me neither.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one-shot, but I might add more following the development of the James/Hamilton relationship... particularly if there's demand. We'll see. 
> 
> P.S. Follow me on Tumblr! I'm [adhdronanlynch](http://adhdronanlynch.tumblr.com/).


	2. No More Shadows Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James awakes to the memory of the previous night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess some warning for gay panic? Although it's more like bisexual vague anxiety/denial, so, not too dramatic.

When the dawn came the room was the color of peach, not blue. 

In the drowsy purple before first light, James had awoken, wrapped in Thomas’ sheets, and been instantly confronted with the uncertain memory of last night. The first kiss had somehow seemed most unreal, the rest simply a natural following, some unspun fantasy concocted by caviar-and-wine dreams. The sort of enticing, embarrassing alternate reality that one would muse over, almost savor for a while, and then soon forget. 

But if the dream had been fantastical last night, it appeared to hold even more power this morning, for here James was. And after ruminating so heavily, neither the blue shadows nor purple haze remained, giving way to pink skies striking the room peach; the color of awakening. 

That was to say, he was awake. This was reality. And this bed very certainly was not his own, although a quick glance around the room confirmed that Thomas was not present at this moment either. 

Cautiously, James pushed himself up from the down pillows, hoisting into a sitting position. There was a faint crook in his neck, which he managed to stretch out, and his hair felt unruly. Instinctively he glanced towards the dresser where dream-memory claimed he had lain his hair-ribbon the previous night. His pulse jolted when his eyes, indeed, found it there. A traveling gaze confirmed, too, that both their coats hung on the stand near the door, and below them, just one pair of shoes. Thomas must have gotten dressed. 

Shifting further upright, James noticed a soreness in his rear.  _ Ah.  _ Right. That would be… a sensation to adjust to. Chewing his lower lip contemplatively, he continued his examination of the room, where the peach light was growing yellower by the minute. No shirts or trousers strewn on the floor. Where had they – oh, they’d been folded and placed on the chair in the corner. As seconds ticked past, a subtly encroaching anxiety became more palpable. What  _ was _ this? What temporary insanity had possessed him to embark on a sexual relationship with the person he was meant to be serving in a professional capacity?

Images of fucking Miranda in the carriage appeared to him without summoning, and then of spending time with Thomas in the library, both of the Hamiltons and him in their parlor; reading; at the dinner table. Thomas kissing him. 

The memories were so warm, vaguely darkened, utterly at odds with James’ training. This wasn’t supposed to be their relationship. He wasn’t supposed to be beholden to them. Wasn’t supposed to become lover to them. Wasn’t supposed to feel at home with them. Where did this path lead? It couldn’t possibly lead anywhere. He’d betrayed his only directive, he’d stepped off the road laid out for him, entered tiny, secret, warm corners, pleasurable, loving corners – but those rooms had no exits. There was no future for them. For him. For this. 

Yet he had done it anyway. Why?

_ You know why. _

He wasn’t prepared for this. There was no map for this. It was uncharted territory. Territory not  _ meant _ to be charted. This was the shadowy edges of the atlas, the  _ Here There Be Monsters _ . Only the monsters were Thomas and Miranda Hamilton. And being loved. 

The conflict turmoiled like sickness in his stomach. 

A slight knock at the door drew his attention, and before he could answer, the door opened. He had expected Miranda, for some reason—perhaps because he’d never seen Thomas knock anywhere. But it was him, the lord of the house. The designated occupant of this bed. The person whose room James was sitting in, naked. 

But it was so hard to focus on anything else when Thomas was in a room. That had always been the case. As predicted, the other had indeed dressed, and he entered the room with a cautious smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling as they were want to do. 

“Good morning, James,” said Thomas, and James let out a breath from tightly wound lungs, wondering what his reaction would have been if Thomas had called him ‘Lieutenant’ instead.

“Good morning,” he replied, more shortly than he had meant to, and feeling the flush in his neck. 

Thomas was carrying something. A… hairbrush? He set it down on the dresser, coming to sit on the edge of the bed, seeming to watch him. James didn’t know what sort of expression to make, nor words to say, so he simply watched him back.

After a minute of this, Thomas spoke first. “I… wasn’t sure what your thoughts would be when you awoke, so I thought I’d better let you alone. But your clothes are in the corner for you. And I’ve brought you a brush for your hair. I had to fetch it from Miranda; god knows I haven’t enough to bother with one.”

A smile tugged on James’ lips, wheedling, tempting him to relax. How did Thomas do this? He was like good ale, warm and familiar and made everything just a little less effort, a little more amber. Then again, there were times when Thomas was exceedingly difficult. Perhaps there were two sides to him.

Reflecting back to last night, James wondered, as he often had, if there were two sides to himself as well. 

“Thank you,” he managed. 

Thomas’ shoulders seemed to relax a little at that, and he fetched the wooden brush for James, handing it to him. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, James dragged the bristles through his red hair, silent and repetitive. 

It took another moment of quiet for Thomas to be prompted, again, to break it. He had always been weaker than James on that front. 

“Last night…” he began, and James’ shoulders tensed automatically. “You said you didn’t regret it. I just wanted to let you know, you don’t have to stand by that. I know you have the Navy to consider, I know… well. I know it is very easy for a man to want to take something like that back.”

James didn’t know what to say, thoughts churning, so he dragged the brush through his hair once more. Thomas took this as leave to continue, gaze directed towards his own thumbs in his lap, where his hands were interlocked, the picture of gentility. 

“Myself, I… feel we’ve grown close, and have a trust and familiarity with one another. My wife and I have welcomed you into our home, and Miranda to her bed, and I… frankly, any aspect in which you’d place yourself in my life would delight me. Intellectually, fraternally, amicably, collaboratively—I’m quite lucky to know you, James. That won’t change, no matter how you wish to be known.”

The words lingered in his mind, floating like ice in hot soup, dissolving slowly, coloring his thoughts, tempering his uncertainties. James finally let the hand with the brush drop back down to the bed, and looked back at Thomas. 

“Do you regret it?”

Thomas only blinked, unfazed. “Not in the least,” he said, in that dauntless way which had always impressed James. 

James pursed his lips, knowing his jaw was pulsing in that particular way it did sometimes during concentrated thought. “...Should I?” he finally asked plainly. 

He felt, despite Thomas’ confession, that the other’s principles would compel him to be truthful, to let him know. And James desperately needed to know. Was this a mistake? Had he been a fool? Was this a line too dangerous to cross? 

Thomas’ sympathetic smile was nearly infuriating, but not enough to penetrate James’ need for the answer.

“Only if you’ve done anything for which you should be ashamed.”

Well that was unfair. James frowned. Who decided for what one  _ should _ be ashamed? The queen, the government, the masses – the same people who had cheered for the hanging of a pirate? Even the nobility already ridiculed Thomas for what they only imagined to be his most contemptible qualities – compassion, progressive thought, idealism, a flirtatious wife. And yet, could he, James, honestly say he believed any of those things were shameful? He had known Thomas for little months and yet felt quite certain in his conviction that he was the better of any ten thousand men on the planet. Better than them all. It was the harassers, the judgers, the cowards who should be ashamed. 

Thomas’ hand found James’ shoulder in his rumination, squeezing softly with broad hands. 

“The answer is no, James,” he said gently, as though he had read the other’s mind. “Unless you’ve been dishonest with yourself, you’ve committed no crime. In all else, have no shame.”

James leaned into Thomas’ touch, which had become familiar over time even before last night. Thomas had always been tactile in his friendliness, more so than his wife, who was genteel and withdrawn in physical manner and saucy in her words (until they were in the bedroom, that is). He considered reaching his hand for Thomas’, but – he still had to think. 

‘Dishonest’ with himself. For what? What about? He knew that, in the issue of laying with man, most people likely knew someone who partook in the same – behind closed doors, with someone of lower station, usually, who might be used with little consequence or paid off discreetly. But partaking in men for a fuck was different than this. That much was clear. It had been what had made this easier, despite its novelty. This wasn’t a lustful inclination, it was an affair. Or would be, if he decided to continue. Nor, he realized faintly, was it even the same  _ sort _ of affair as he might have had with others – his relationship, for instance, with Miranda. They were of the same house, same court, husband and wife, often of one mind – but it wasn’t the same. 

Miranda and he stood on equal ground, he realized, with one another. Thomas and he were partners, yes, but last night—last night. Last night had made it clear. The words didn’t make sense, but were nonetheless apparent: he could fall in love with Thomas Hamilton. 

Love. He hadn’t even known he’d had the capacity. He hadn’t even known men had had the capacity to  _ do _ so for one another.

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps this was misguided admiration, the odd child of lust and friendship, and that innate desire to please that he had never quite fully stamped out. Perhaps it didn’t matter, he realized. Feelings, if history held any truth to it, could be stamped out, discarded, and ignored. The principles he had begrudgingly grown after too long of an exposure to Thomas were stubborn, to his annoyance, but he had plenty of experience waysiding emotion. 

“James?” said Thomas, breaking his reverie, and leaning against his shoulder, eyes curious.

James resisted startling, licking his lips contemplatively instead. What had the question been again?  Whether he was ashamed. Acknowledging his desires. And did he desire Thomas? The previous evening already seemed so long ago, so far away. Would that trembling creature in his belly yet again awaken in the light of day?

There was only one way to find out. He remembered feeling that the first kiss had been inevitable. This time, he would be able to make a choice. Twisting his angle so that his face might mirror Thomas’, James kissed him. 

The moment Thomas parted his lips, James’ dream-memory awoke.  _ Oh _ . He was drawn into the kiss like a siren song, hand finding Thomas’ fine hair, teeth on his lips, tongue in his mouth. So little did one really _kiss_ in the sorts of encounters James mostly had. Even with Miranda, he kissed mostly her shoulders, her hands, the lips between her legs. It had felt improper to kiss the mouth of another man’s wife. 

But not, apparently, to kiss said woman’s husband. 

Thomas sighed into his lips, shifting that he might face him better, hand running over his chest. James responded by curling his hand around Thomas’ neck, thumb caressing his pulse, holding him steady to keep kissing him, deeper, wanting to elicit more nips, more suckles, more seeds of what might become moans. How was being with Thomas so—so—he couldn’t find the right word for it, crackling like lightning, warm like fire, buzzing like static. It was like it fed a hunger that was otherwise invisible in him, where at one touch he found himself then ravenous. His pulse and skin both thrummed as each kiss and touch evoked more vivid recollections of the previous night. Thomas' cock in his mouth, his teeth on his ear, his tongue in his ass – Thomas was leaning closer to him now, chests pressing against each other, and the hand James had been using to support himself fled to the other’s back instead, gripping into him. There was a faint flinch and a hiss in response, and James stilled at once.

“What is it?” he murmured, marveling to hear the arousal distinct in his own voice. 

Thomas breathed a soft laugh through his nose. “My back is wearing a few scratches that it didn’t have yesterday, that’s all.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “I imagine I’m not alone in bearing a little residual soreness, though.” He led his look meaningfully down James’ chest, where James realized, after following his gaze, a bruise or two had blossomed. James flashed a wry smile. 

“I’m no stranger to a few flesh wounds,” he said. 

“Oh no, of course not; you’re a military man,” agreed Thomas, teasing. “I myself, however, have done nothing but sit on my posh arse my entire life, so being so decorated is a little new. Meg caught me sneaking down the hallway and was marvelously scandalized at the sight of me; I must say, once I caught eye of my neck in the mirror, I could see why.” Meg, of course, was one of the Hamilton’s servants. 

The heat of a blush set upon James’ cheeks. “I’d have held back, but I suppose my presence of mind was a little… elsewhere.”

At this Thomas cocked his head coyly, leaning in to ask in an almost-whisper: “I didn’t say I minded.” 

James swallowed, wanting nothing more than to lean in and devour that tempting smirk off of Thomas’ face, but another thought paused him. “The girl, seeing you… is that, a concern?”

Thomas looked amused at this thought, leaning back a little and smiling. “James, you might have noticed that despite your decided  _ lack _ of subtlety coming to and fro of my wife’s bedcovers, no one has yet come to arrest either you or the Lady Miranda.”

Brow wrinkling at the affectionate insult, James nonetheless had to admit the truth in this. 

“No, no one in this house will be a problem.” James watched as Thomas ran his fingers through his hair. It really was such a shame when he covered it with a wig. “Anyone who Miranda and I take into our home has already proven their trustworthiness. All who stay here are family.”

Quietly, in the back of his mind, James marvelled at the thought that that might include him. 

Before he could lean in to kiss him again, however, another knock came at the door, neater yet more hesitant than Thomas’ had been. Thomas drew back, and James looked down at himself, realizing he was still naked, and hastily drew the covers further across his legs and waist. They both straightened, attempting to look presentable.

“Enter,” called Thomas.

Meg opened the door, and James couldn’t help but feel some mixture of amused and horrified for her. How awkward it must be to see that bruise on Thomas and then walk in only to find  _ him _ here, disheveled and unclothed. 

Still, her composure was quite impressive. “Lady Hamilton requests your presence to join her for breakfast, milord,” she said as though rehearsed, eyes flickering to James only once. “... both of you.” 

James cleared his throat, nodding. Thomas smiled, pure elegance and innocence, though James knew well that curve of the brow. He was enjoying this, too. 

“You may tell my wife we will be there shortly,” he said, kind and polite, “once my companion is dressed.”

Once the door was closed, Thomas stretched, lounging back on the bed. “Interrupted in my own home!” he moaned dramatically. “Whatever is my privilege for if not to prevent that?”

James smirked, shifting to hover over him. “Perhaps you should add a nice strong bolt to that door,” he said. 

“Or a guard,” suggested Thomas. “Equally nice and strong, of course. Someone with excellent posture. A military officer. I don’t suppose you’d know anyone?”

A private laugh escaped James. Thomas had often teased him for his rigid posture. “I might,” he confessed, “but the problem with said officer watching the door is that they couldn’t simultaneously be inside the room. And if they couldn’t be in the room with you, with whom would you do anything worth guarding?”

“A conundrum if I ever saw one,” said Thomas solemnly. “You always have had a knack for shooting down my ideas.”

James smiled, then bent to kiss the regretfully slim bit of neck visible over Thomas’ collar. “Isn’t that what you keep me around for?”

“Oh no,” said Thomas, hands lifting to find and skim down James’ broad, freckly back. “Much more than that.” He shifted his face and their lips met. 

Kissing Thomas was the same feeling from yesterday all over again: inevitability. Something he would surely question and angst and stress over the moment he was out from Thomas’ home once more, but without a doubt it would happen again. Thomas was like that. He could make any future seem fated, any end the only one. It was more than James could fully confront right now, perhaps, but right now, all there was to confront was the enchanting gentleman beneath him, the looming call for breakfast, and the warming peach-turned-buttercup-yellow of the London sun through the window. 

Though she would scold them for being late once the two finally arrived for breakfast, James miraculously clothed and Thomas deceptively neatened, Miranda undoubtedly knew better than to expect anything else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought myself really funny when I wrote James not being able to find a word for a feeling one might now describe as "electric"... until I thought to google etymology and disappoint myself with the knowledge that, at least as a term, 'electricity' has been around since at least 1646. Sad. We'll just say it's because he's an "uneducated" Navy man. 
> 
> In other news, reviews continue to be the only thing capable of bringing me joy and motivation in life. If you don't leave them here, at least come hang out at my [tumblr](http://adhdronanlynch.tumblr.com/)! xo


	3. Where the Figs Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the tumultuous days after their first encounter, James finds himself drawn back to Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve been rewatching the show yet again, and noticed that the flashbacks actually imply that hours after the confrontation with Thomas’ father, ie the incident following which they kiss, the Hamiltons and James meet with a group to promote their plan for Nassau. Obviously, they couldn’t have done that while fucking. So, I’m gonna interpret the show with… a broad brush, and decide that Thomas’ use of the words “Hours ago” was totally for dramatic effect and could mean any range of time less than 24 hours, ie the previous day rather than that night. (: Cheers to the imagination!
> 
> (Warnings for undernegotiated, if very consensual, kink, and light bondage.)

As a youth, James had known the Navy from the perspective of an intimate neighbor; he recognized the returning ships, knew many of the faces of the men who toiled there, unconsciously memorized the names of well-known officers, and drank eagerly of the gossip the villagers shared such that he considered himself familiar with the naval life and many of the aspects which it entailed.

Then, once he was grown enough, he had been accepted as a new recruit, and relearned everything from the internal perspective. Though he had stood on the same docks and seen the same decks, known the same men and recognized the same masts, the world had somehow shifted into something new. Belonging to the Navy was an entirely different experience from just knowing it. It was at once grander, lesser, and stranger from the inside. 

The Hamilton household Post-Thomas felt this same way. 

The few days immediately following the kiss (and everything that had come after) seemed to happen very fast. With the knowledge that Alfred Hamilton was garnering support against them, the three conspirators were hard-pressed to establish their own allies. When all but one of the Lord & Lady’s colleagues and friends had departed from their parlor that second night, James found himself reacting from a position he had barely known at the start of this venture – true faith and optimism. Their departure was a wrench in his heart, to his own surprise; as the old James McGraw, he would have foreseen this, been unaffected by this. Somehow over the past months he had become a Hamilton, become assured of their success, stubbornly insistent on believing in its possibilities. He didn’t know how he felt about this shift in perspective, but he suspected it would not be easily undone. He was still the practical military man of the three, the temper to Thomas’ stubbornness and the thoughtful tactician to Miranda’s keen questioning; nevertheless, without a doubt, he had become something different than an ally. He was one of them. Their side was his side. 

Reflecting, it was clear that this had been the case for a while now. He knew Admiral Hennessy would caution him against this involvement, but while the Admiral had been nothing less than a father to him, it was becoming clear that one could not really understand anything that went on in this household from the outside. There was the rest of the world, and then there was the Hamilton house. It was its own plane of reality, and here a prosperous Nassau was still possible, though under great threat. Here, attachment was not a weakness, but a strength. Here, they were a three-headed monster; Cerberus in neat coats and jewel-toned dresses, huddled together in the chilly heart of London. 

With the concept of pardons now officially on the table, association with the threesome had become more toxic to London society than ever. Where before the Lord & Lady Hamilton had been eccentric but admirable, their worst crime an unconventional approach to marital fidelity, they had now been branded a more dangerous sort of radical – the sort it was no longer acceptable to associate with in public aside from polite, chilly smiles and respectful nods and bows. Neither of them went out much those first few days, but James knew that gossip traveled quickly, and that the Earl’s personal network of connections would make talk a formidable opponent to overcome. However, they did have one ally at least: Peter Ashe. 

Following the dismal reactions to Thomas’ impromptu salon, after which Ashe had been the only one to offer his help, the man began to spend time collaborating with the three of them. For the first time, James felt as though Peter was occupying Lieutenant McGraw’s former place on the other side of the table, whereas James had become an attachment to Thomas’ position – Miranda, of course, gliding effortlessly between the eaves and the main stage. Even as the early conversations revolved around establishing everything he and Thomas had planned out already, James found that his new position felt nothing less than intoxicating, more so because of the charge he was now excruciatingly aware of every time Thomas was near. 

Like he had with Miranda at first, James privately wondered whether the invisible bond of intimacy between himself and Thomas was somehow visible to the bystander. Could Peter see it? Was that his gaze lingering on the passage of papers and books from Thomas’ hands to his own, could he tell? Or was it imagined? Miranda, to her infinite credit, acted no differently in public, though she above all knew what had happened between them. She was infinitely poised, kissing the cheek and warming the shoulders of her husband, and treating James in turn with gracious respect and warmth; she had always been a skilled actress, but James found himself grateful that she was even more so after Thomas than she had been after she and himself had become intimate. It turned out she was indeed capable of restraining her flirting (just not her generally effervescent self, that ever clever gleam so constant in her eye). 

It was Thomas himself, in fact, James realized, whose gaze he was most frequently avoiding. He didn’t trust himself to be able to look away. Everything has become different. With Miranda, interacting in public had been a game, trading sly smiles and brief looks, a graze of the hand, feet brushing beneath the table; little secrets, little thrills. With Thomas, there was an urge which threatened to overwhelm him, and it wasn’t to flirt and play, but to embrace, to be utterly at one with, to lean against him as Miranda did, to squeeze his hand like their fingers had entwined in bed that morning, to lounge in the same chairs. The compulsion whispered temptingly _don’t be a guest, don’t be a suitor, you aren’t the combatant in the duel of romance, you are his, you are his, you are his._

It was a very dangerous voice. It took all of his effort to suppress it, though suppress it he did for those first tumultuous days in the aftermath of Earl Hamilton.

On the fourth day, however, Peter Ashe had been obliged to an appointment, and could not meet with the Hamiltons and the Lieutenant to strategize. As a result, on the fourth day, everything that had seemed to blur with the unhalting rush of time all at once became still, and sharp, and excruciatingly slow. There were no planned meetings, no conspiring, no lists to go over for the seventh time. The morning was utterly, painfully long, and after the sky had seemed to glare at him for hours (though surely the sun had not been risen that long in reality) James found himself donning his hat and coat and hailing a carriage to take him to the Hamilton place. 

When he at last knocked upon the door, his raps sounded smart and neat with militant poise, in contrast with his tightly wound breath and stuttering pulse. He had never shown up at the Hamilton household uninvited before, though he was welcomed so frequently that before now an infraction would hardly have been possible. Wetting his dry lips, he realized that he didn’t know what to expect. It was possible calling upon them without warning like this violated up to a dozen rules of London propriety. He was not usually so out of line, but that thing inside of him—the one Admiral Hennessy had often warned him about, the one that possessed his fist and turned his mind white on those rare occasions in which he transformed from gentleman to brawler, the one that had drawn him like a puppet string to take another man’s wife by the hand and kiss her in a carriage, the one that called him into remarkable ferocity at battle, the one that superficially resembled ego or ambition but which he knew was something much more slippery than that—had become his pilot, and when the thing drove him, there was no possibility of preventing it from reaching its destination.

The door opened and it was neither a servant nor the Lady Hamilton, it was Thomas, blue eyes widening ever-faintly with surprise, and the stone in James’ chest sighed and let itself go, winter’s snow thawed by the sun’s first rays of spring.

“James,” Thomas said, the other’s presence clearly unexpected. “Please—” He stepped aside, opening the door wider that James might enter.

Now that the thing had let go of his marionette strings and disappeared, James felt a return of self-consciousness flood in. 

“I apologize for my intrusion,” he murmured as Thomas closed and bolted the door behind them. “I should have called and ensured that you were available to receive me—”

“Nonsense,” chided Thomas, placing a hand at James’ elbow and guiding him further inside. James noticed he was not wearing his wig, and felt a private pleasure. “There is no hour at which your presence would be unwelcome here, Lieutenant.”

James nodded, though the knot in his throat would need more convincing. “Where’s Miranda?” he asked suddenly, realizing what was strange about the house. It was too quiet, no bustling skirts or crackling fire. 

Thomas’ smile and the ever-present crinkling of his eyes did well to replicate that warmth, however. “She is visiting a schoolfriend who has come to London, a girl she knew in her youth who is staying in the city for a short while. I have given her the day to spend. – Did you come to see her?” His brow suddenly creased, as though it had just occurred to him that James might not be here for him alone. 

“No,” said James, the word expelling too quickly and too loud. He steadied himself with a breath, clearing his throat and looking down. “I—” He stopped short again, frowning.

Thomas only tilted his head with curious eyes, patience infinite and enticing. How was it that, though his presence in any room was stern and commanding, with James he could always seem so utterly gentle? 

Pursing his lips, James forced himself to look up and meet the other’s eyes, which immediately sent his stomach swimming. “I only – The past few days, there’ve been rather urgent priorities, of course.” He swallowed, still feeling remnants of guilt for having been the one to send the Earl out of his own house. Would it have been so drastic if he had stood down…? “We haven’t had much of an opportunity – that is, everything’s been occurring quite fast, and since I’ve been staying at my boarding house, there was little chance to… I wanted, I suppose—”

In his life had he ever been so ineloquent? James cursed himself, but in the breadth of an instant he witnessed comprehension in Thomas’ gaze. The latter drew his hand down to clasp James’, and inclined his head closer with lips curved warmly up at the ends. “I’ve missed you too.”

It was honey on his tongue, a breath of warm air from the savannah crossed the ocean just to touch and loosen his lungs. James let out a soft exhale. “Everything’s so strange,” he admitted, finding Thomas’ other hand with his own and entwining the both of them, watching their fingers lace together. It felt magnificently correct. Thomas leaned inward to rest his forehead against James’. 

“Bad strange?” he asked, and James remembered nights ago— _”...in a bad way?”_ Thomas had asked then, and the answer had been no, never, just as it was now. He shook his head, unable to resist a smile. Thomas was uncanny for his ability to draw those out of him. 

“I’m just remembering how I told Admiral Hennessy I wouldn’t fall victim to your charisma and become ensnared by you,” said James. 

Thomas laughed. “And do you consider yourself ensnared now?”

James considered, playing along. “No,” he decided after a moment. “Engrossed, perhaps, but I don’t believe I am captive to you.”

This elicited a glint from Thomas as he slipped his fingers from James’, skimming them around to lock around James’ wrists instead, long digits forming makeshift cuffs. He held his wrists, palm side up, firmly though not painfully. 

“And now?”

James narrowed his eyes, then pulled his wrists a bit to test Thomas’ grip, which remained iron. “...it's highly inadvisable to try and imprison a military man, you know.”

Thomas’ smile was light and wicked. “Good Lieutenant, haven't you yet learned that I've hardly a taste for the well-advised?”

James pursed his lips, at odds with the microscopic tendril of thrill sprouting in his chest. He considered these words, mulling over them for seconds, before he lowered his chin cautiously, looking up at Thomas through copper eyelashes. “As a practical person myself, I’d advise that if you wish any hope of my cooperation, your capture had better be quite complete. I’ll easily resist you elsewise.”

A soft breath escaped Thomas’ lips, and in the next instant he was kissing James, his hands having left his wrists to cradle his head. Like a shadow puppet James’ hands nevertheless followed Thomas’, resting over his knuckles to keep holding him close as he pressed his lips back into the kiss. Breaking from the kiss after a moment, James murmured: “Are you busy today?”

“Not in the least,” said Thomas, pressing their foreheads together still, reverently. “I can share with you whatever of my presence you may desire.”

These words didn’t know their own scope; James desired everything. He wanted Thomas’ mind, his wit and combat in discussions, he wanted his idealistic visions, he wanted his wry and warm companionship, he wanted his physical intimacy. He wanted more of what they had started mere days ago. All at once he realized he did not know how to achieve this, much less articulate this. Should he let Thomas take him to bed? Was that an absurd idea, so early in the day? But would that relegate them to only the one activity, when what he most greedily wanted was all of him? But then, to remain in the more open eaves of the Hamilton’s home would perhaps indicate that he sought only intellectual discussion today, despite the way his skin burned to touched by him. 

“Perhaps…” he managed, then paused again. He allowed himself something of a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to act as a gentleman caller to a… gentleman.”

Thomas gave that crinkle-eyed smile of his. “Me neither,” he admitted. “But I’ve never been much for courting anyway; Miranda can attest to that.”

James found himself arching a skeptical brow at this. “Then how on earth did you manage to solicit her courtship?”

“Oh, that was entirely her,” professed Thomas with a laugh, and James could not help but to echo with a grin. How like Miranda. “She was relentless, I tell you. I performed all of the appropriate rituals, of course, but it was she who knew what she wanted. I daresay she knew better than I what _I_ wanted, when I danced around doing anything out of shyness.”

“I cannot picture you shy,” admitted James. He tried to imagine Thomas faltering or hesitating at anything, and utterly failed. 

Nevertheless Thomas was adamant, if rather fond in his amusement as his own downfalls. “I’m quite hopeless at romance, I assure you. I’m much more comfortable entertaining someone in my own home, among my books or in my bed.” His tone became more teasing at the last bit, and James harbored a small, curled smile. 

“So entertain me.”

There. He had laid out a challenge. Everything felt more stimulating and breathless when with Thomas, even though James was ordinarily quite a capable flirt and had within him a bold tongue, owing both to his personality and his history. But Thomas was not a pretty belle, he was a stern Lord, who just happened also to be pretty. And James desperately wanted to achieve that intimacy again, that wholeness. 

It seemed by Thomas’ expression that he was appreciative of James’ flirting, at least, however subtle. “I aim to, Lieutenant, but do you wish to be entertained by bookcase or bedroom?”

James paused, finding his lips dry and his skin prickling with encroaching heat. He met Thomas’ gaze head on after a moment. “... Yes.”

Thomas’ hands were on James’ waist now, no longer his jaw, and he sought his lips in another kiss, to which James capitulated easily, sliding his hands back around Thomas’ back. They held each other close as Thomas deepened the kiss, James coaxing his tongue past his lips, making soft sounds in the other’s mouth. When Thomas drew back, it was with eyes shining and lips still wet. 

“Come,” he said, stepping backwards and drawing James with him. “The drawing room will receive you now.” 

As seemed his fate in whatever Thomas might do, James followed. 

Once in the drawing room, Thomas shut the wooden doors behind them. James eyed the movement, raising a brow. Thomas only smiled like the cat that got the cream.

“Didn't you say I’d have to keep you captive?”

There was a trill in James’ chest. “I may have,” he said, lifting his chin. 

Thomas kissed him for the third time, hand at his cheek, and James wondered if he'd ever be able to have his face touched again without his pulse thrumming in memory of this. He leaned into the kiss, pressing flush against him. To his chagrin, Thomas pulled away again, and he felt his lips curve into something alarmingly akin to a pout. (Lord, what _had_ this man done to him?)

But Thomas was loosening his cravat, James realized, and his pout disappeared. Instead he remained silent, watching Thomas’ deft long fingers unknot and draw out the neatly folded cloth.

“Do you have any further obligations today?” Thomas asked.

“No,” said James.

“Would you like to stay?”

 _Always._ “Yes.”

“You've got all the right answers, don't you,” commented Thomas, clearly pleased.

James couldn't help a wry smirk. “You rarely seem to think so.”

Thomas laughed. “I suppose you've found the secret to making me more agreeable, then.” He unthreaded the last inches of the cravat, sliding it out from his collar.

“What, consenting to let you ravish me?”

Thomas hummed, leaning in to brush his lips against James’ jaw where it met his ear, eliciting a shiver. “Precisely.”

James lifted his hands to Thomas’ neck, but Thomas took a step back, tutting.

“We’ve established what makes _me_ agreeable, but you, dear Lieutenant, have insinuated your cooperation must be coerced under restraint.”

“And you intend to put me under restraint?” James couldn't help but retort, curiosity outweighing his pride.

Thomas smiled, smoothing out the length of his cravat through his fingers.

Oh? … _Oh. … Well_ then _._

James didn't notice his own tongue dart out to wet his lips. Thomas, by the movement of his glance, did. But soon he was only in the periphery of James’ vision, walking slowly around him, like a dressmaker his form. James remained at attention as Thomas’ hands found his own from behind, drawing them close together, then brushing the silky tie along his wrists, slowly wrapping it around into a sturdy knot. James couldn’t help but glance at the doors to the room. This was not the sort of position one could explain away. He was having trouble explaining to _himself_ how he was allowing it, much less an unexpected visitor. 

Thomas distracted him with a kiss to the earlobe, setting his eyelids fluttering. 

“No one will enter unless I bid them,” he said into James’ ear, breath tickling his flesh, which really, James thought, was entirely unfair. 

“What about – visitors? An acquaintance or peer?”

It was rather difficult to concentrate with Thomas now trailing soft kisses down his jaw and neck, but he did give a valiant effort. Fortunately it was Thomas’ turn to reply:

“I shall turn them all away.”

“And if they insist on being heard?”

“Then I won’t bring them into the drawing room.”

At this James’ head yanked to face Thomas’, frowning. “You mean you’d leave me in here, bound like this?”

Thomas’ eyes gleamed, as they were wont to do. “If I had a say about it, I’d not be away from you a single minute.” He paused, then smiled. “If you’ll forgive my extravagance. I’m not very used to finding things I desire out of my reach, lest they be rather less corporeal.” 

James wasn’t sure anyone had ever called him an object of desire before. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of it in principle, but the practice of hearing it from the lips of the man he had become so devoted to over the past months was undeniably titillating. 

“And how have you been tolerating having me… out of your reach?” James tilted his head back accommodatingly as Thomas began to unwind his cravat. 

“Excruciatingly,” said Thomas, drawing kisses to James’ throat as the necktie was loosened, allowing him more access. James felt the instinctive impulse to reach for him, slide his fingers in his hair, but found himself unable to, wrists snug behind him. He tried to distract himself by continuing the conversation. 

“You’ve an admirable penchant for disguising it.”

“I’ve felt like a dog on a leash,” said Thomas, moving his lips to the other side of his neck. With a faint sigh, James tilted his head accordingly. “Straining at the collar. It is you who remained remarkably composed. I nearly questioned whether you’d…”

He trailed off at this, flirtation turned genuine, and James attempted to analyze his expression from the obscured angle, too close to observe properly. 

“Whether I’d…?”

Thomas straightened slightly so that James was able to have a proper look at him head-on. “...Had second thoughts,” he finished, the words carrying the air of a confession. 

James knew it was a question as much as a statement, though perhaps an absurd question considering their current situation. Still, he could hardly blame him. It would be less than genteel for England to dare hang a _Lord_ for any crime less than treason, but this particular trespass, despite its prevalence, could indeed have grave results if discovered. Some, it seemed, were unable to resist their predilection for other men, and often paid for it. As someone with a considerable amount of self-restraint at least half of the time, and whose position was not afforded the luxury of permanence should he step out of line… James could easily decide it wasn’t worth the risk. He could change his mind. He could have a moment of clarity and ask himself what on earth had ever motivated him to interpret the admiration and friendship between himself and Lord Hamilton as something worth debasing with sexual vulgarity. He could return, ever happily, to Miranda, or any other woman in London, seek their attentions, wet their snatches, sow his seed as he knew many other sailors and soldiers of his ilk were undoubtedly doing. He was not, perhaps, exceptional in his social graces, but he was clever, had a good station in the Navy, was symmetrical of face and firm of stature, and would likely have little trouble securing attention of the feminine persuasion were he so inclined to seek it out. Within the past several days, amid fitful nights reliving their night together and the charged moments retaining composure in public, it was true that the possibility had occurred to James.

Somehow, though, it never managed to stay. It was less that he considered it, mulled it over, and then decided to plow on; the process was more like a rowboat skirting the reef. It simply failed to retain weight enough to merit further rumination. Objectively he knew the practical thing would be to do so, but it did not happen. There was not a bone in him whose doubt and uncertainty—for of course there was doubt and uncertainty, as in all things—outweighed the utter, bare sincerity of whatever the chemical draw was between himself and Thomas. It was artless, thoughtless, and irrefutable. It was like gravity between celestial bodies. He could analyse it, reject it, perhaps even divert it – and it was days yet. He might still, and realistically this was an eventuality – this status could not last forever, not with their plans, not with his role. But at the moment, James’ skin was magnetite, and Thomas was the North. Deny this was the one thing he could not do.

“So far, my thoughts have only led me back here,” he said, the recollection of days past having lasted but a flickered instant in his mind. Thomas seemed to consider this response with characteristic sombreness for a moment, then leaned his forehead to rest against James’, a wordless communication of assent. 

“Good,” he murmured, verbalizing his thoughts. “I much prefer having you within reach.”

“You have me now,” said James, with the strange feeling that he was reassuring Thomas, which couldn’t be possible because Thomas was always self-assured—to a fault, as had often become clear in their many debates. “Within reach, and rather at your mercy, if you recall.” He demonstrated by attempting to yank his wrists further apart, resulting only in an ineffectual jerk of the shoulders, as Thomas was apparently much more talented at securing cravats when they were not around his own neck. (James had, bemused, witnessed many occasions where Miranda had been forced to intervene in Thomas’ hopeless attempts at maintaining a neatly tied knot. “Really,” she often said, exasperated, “You’d put your wig on upside down if it weren’t fitted to your head.”)

Thomas smiled at that. “You’re quite right,” he said, reaching his hands to spread James’ collar now that his own cravat had been undone. “I really ought to be taking advantage of that.”

“I do wish you would,” said James without thinking, then berated himself mentally for the curmudgeonly petulance evident in his voice. 

Nevertheless, his wish was rewarded. Thomas bowed his lips to James’ bared neck, mouthing kisses and soft nips and suckles across his collar, at his throat, up along the warm thrum of his pulse to his jaw. After far too long meandering, he finally found James’ mouth again with his own; James’ tongue needed no coaxing to push past his lips, hungry to deepen the contact, overneedy without the use of his hands. Thomas’ hands skimmed down his waistcoast, as though deliberately light, until they met his waist, where they slid around to hold fast. James arched into the hands, attempting to push closer without unsettling his balance. He wanted very much to nudge his legs to interlock with Thomas’, but with no grip to steady him, it seemed unwise. Only one part of him had been restrained, yet it was having a remarkable impact on his maneuverability. Thomas was clearly being either crueller or cleverer than he would have guessed. Perhaps both.

Somehow he couldn’t manage to summon up resentment or contempt. 

Still, Thomas soon proved capable of generosity as well as caprice. He began to guide James’ backwards, unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat as he went and nudging him along step by step until James’ bound hands and then upper arms and shoulders met the protrusion of a bookshelf, having been walked up to the perimeter of the room. He let his head loll back slightly, back of his skull meeting the bumpy spine of a book. It was uncomfortable, but support was support, and now he would not fear stumbling. 

Thomas, in the meantime, was interdispersing kisses while he busied his hands, tugging out the hem of James’ shirt from the waist of his breeches. James let his lids lower, pressing into each kiss. If he couldn’t touch Thomas—and _God_ , he wanted to—the least he could do was enjoy the other’s hands on him. He couldn’t determine what heat was his own and what was the warmth that seemed ineffably exuded by Thomas, although he quickly stopped trying to tell when, shirt successfully loosened, the other’s long fingers wormed their way into his breeches. Thomas’ lips were at his neck again, sucking the same spot, almost sweetly, while his fingers traced with tantalizing delicacy along James’ clothed length. He lifted his lips only to bring them to James’ ear.

“It would seem you have no avenue of escape.”

James groaned softly. “So it would seem.”

“Leaving you no choice but to cooperate.” Thomas swept his tongue along James’ ear, and he shuddered, far too affected; his hands strained at their tethers instinctively. He had to forcibly remind himself not to actually wrest himself from the binding, lest he spoil and thus prematurely end the game. 

“Yes.”

Thomas’ mouth and tongue and teeth were obscenely arousing, made all the worse by the tormentingly slow drag of digits along his stiffening shaft, and James struggled to retain enough composure not to moan out loud, biting down on his tongue. The house staff may not enter closed rooms uninvited, but he was not willing to bet that they wouldn’t make an exception for a notably loud noise. The lord of the house, nevertheless, seemed unfazed by this possibility, nipping and suckling James’ earlobe with no sign of concern. 

“I hadn’t thought ahead,” Thomas confided after moments of this, voice hot and low in James’ ear, “to what I would ask for with your assured obedience.” His breath was shallow and heavy, the only indication of his own physical response. “But I think I’ve decided what I want.”

The entire juxtaposition, the dissonance of being captive to another and yet lusting for every touch, the utter strangeness of feeling dizzyingly, corporeally affected by the imbalance of control between them, something he was certain he would never stand for with another partner – James wondered if he had become a stranger to himself, and if so, whether he minded, considering this new James was proving so susceptible to amorous pleasures. He swallowed, forgetting briefly to acknowledge Thomas’ words; only belatedly did he manage to expel his voice.

“What do you want?”

Thomas withdrew just enough to lock with James’ half-lidded gaze, though his stance had not moved and his hand was still in the other’s pants, dragging a thumb over the head of his cock at which James’ breath stuttered. 

“I’d like to make you come just like this,” he said. 

The ragged breath James released and the forceful heat prickling his cheeks were surely embarrassing, but his cock positively _twitched_ at the words. “Without being allowed to touch you?” he asked, studiously pretending the tactile thirst was not evident in his tone. 

Thomas managed to extricate his hand from James, to his regret, although James noticed that he then moved to roll up the cuff of his sleeve. The blonde seemed to be considering his words, lowering his hands again to loiter at the buttons closing the front of the other’s breeches. “You are allowed to kiss me,” he decided at last, unfastening the buttons one by one. James immediately stretched forward, but Thomas shifted out of reach with an unfairly serene smile. 

“Ah ah,” he said. “Me first.” He tugged open James’ breeches properly with one hand, the other slipping under the loosened fabric of his shirt and open waistcoat to skim the planes of his torso palm to skin, caressing his waist, which James automatically arched into. The first hand wrapped around James’ unbound erection, finally squeezing and more firmly encircling him. James surged his upper half forward again impatiently, fingers curling impotently at his back against the hard shelf, and this time Thomas allowed it, pressing him against the hard structure to meet and return his kiss. 

It wasn’t that the mere ministrations of Thomas’ hand was so overwhelming, or the level lines of wood at James’ posterior, or silk restricting his wrists, or the hungry and possessive kiss. It was more that each of these was so utterly distracting, just half-fulfilling, to the point that each actual contact – Thomas’ free hand brushing across then teasing his right nipple, hot damp fingers milking his cock, throbbing lips and tongues and clashing teeth – elicited the _memory_ of such utter pleasure; the knowledge that he was physically just so near the edge of more, and the inability to move or touch or dig his nails into Thomas’ shoulders or even press bare skin to bare skin, was insufficient to the point of taunting. James prostrate fists clenched and unclenched as he resisted the urge to thrust unabashedly into Thomas’ hands. He channeled all of his frustrations then into the kiss, possessing Thomas’ mouth with bruising fervor, sucking his tongue like an undertow current, nearing something feral. To his satisfaction, he was rewarded with small sounds of pleasure between their lips, and he did his utmost to seek more of these with bites and licks and suckles while Thomas jerked him off. He wished there had been more build-up, wished for more contact, wished for his fucking hands to be free, that he might be able to experience his pleasure more thoroughly, but without those options, if he could kiss the living daylights out of Thomas Hamilton, that would be a small victory. 

Ironically, Thomas, too, almost seemed to crave more contact – he was pressed close into the kiss, with only milliseconds of pause for breath, and the hand that wasn’t working James’ prick had found its way to clutch at his lower back, as though begging him closer. James let his posture shift somewhat so that his back was pressed harder against the shelves, and cautiously pushed his hips into Thomas’ hand, where he was rewarded with a squeeze. He broke his lips from Thomas’, then, dragging his mouth and teeth along the other’s jaw instead, bestowing light kisses and bites while his pelvis canted into tight fingers. Thomas took advantage of the shift to stretch forward, latching his mouth to James’ ear again. A tongue against his sensitive cartilage prompted a wanton sound that James had to physically bite back, self-control quickly eroding. His bound hands gripped at the shelf behind him as Thomas’ teeth and hand pleasured him simultaneously, and he was positively rutting into his fingers now, but he couldn’t even _think_ with that damn tongue at his ear and the rest of him achingly untouched, except for the other hand now gripping at his rear—finally James gasped out a halting breath as his cock pulsed into a spurting climax, spilling his semen over Thomas’ hand and the inside of his own untucked shirt. 

Both Thomas and James were panting softly as Thomas withdrew his hands and James untensed his posture, leaning his weight against the bookshelf behind him. There was a moment of silence while James caught his breath, licking his lips with his head tilted back, and Thomas experimentally lapped up the ejaculate from his hand. A quizzical look overcame him as he sucked his index finger clean, and he rubbed his lower lip contemplatively.

“I think you split my lip a bit,” Thomas said, tone almost wondrous.

James, a sense of reality slowly reclaiming occupancy in him, lifted his head to see, then blanched. “Oh, fuck.” 

Thomas’ lower lip was indeed split, though not horrifically; it bore a thin strike of scarlet slightly to one side, bright and beaded. Without thinking, James tried to reach to steady Thomas’ jaw, but the cravat-bound wrists were not accessible from behind, and he nearly stumbled. Regaining his practicality, Thomas steadied him.

“Wait –” he said, tempering the other, and maneuvered them so that he could access James’ back, taking a moment to unknot and unravel the tie from his wrists, with as much swiftness as he could. Finally freed, James shook his hands loose, not bothering to so much as rub them to return circulation before he grabbed Thomas’ face to inspect the damage. 

“Christ,” James murmured, feeling the burgeoning bubble of shame. “My Lord, please forgive me; I swear I hadn’t the faintest intention of injury—”

“Oh, _do_ shut up,” exclaimed Thomas. His hands had found James’ shoulders and he was gripping them with a faintly exasperated look on his face. “It’s ‘Thomas,’ and James, my love, I wish you’d wait for me to actually be _bothered_ by something before you apologize for it.”

James frowned, but Thomas _had_ told him to remain quiet, so he did so. Stubbornly. 

Thomas’ expression did not betray amusement, and he mimicked James’ frown. “It’s the smallest conceivable wound, and I can’t say I minded receiving it at all. Will you give yourself at least a moment before kicking yourself? I was rather hoping you’d enjoy that, and now you’ve gone and gotten upset like you’ve not been pleasured at all.” His downturned lips pursed and curved into something more wry, and his light eyes purposefully sought James’, making an utterly beseeching look. “Can you ignore it? Please?” 

James’ pulse skipped a beat or two at Thomas’ expression. He was sure he’d never met anyone who possessed such an unparalleled ability to channel cherubic innocence. It was possible that something existed in this world that James could deny to Thomas when he wore that face, but if there was, he hadn’t encountered it yet. Begrudgingly, he loosened his hands and sighed. 

“You’re a fool,” he said.

Thomas’ mouth curved broadly into an irresistible smile. “Careful, Lieutenant,” he said with a wink, tracing the open edges of James’ waistcoat and tugging them closed together over his chest. “That sounds awfully close to insubordination.”

A petulant wrinkle creased James’ brow, though it was tempered slightly as Thomas now lifted his wrists and kissed gently where each of them had been tied. “More insubordinate than injuring you, my Lord?” he asked, dragging it out into a drawl. 

“Yes,” said Thomas, unfazed. “Besides, it wasn’t you that injured me, it was... “ 

He paused. “...Well. I’ll think of something.”

James suppressed a deeper frown with difficulty. Actual harm aside, there was every possibility that the scratch would come across as suspicious to Lord Ashe or some other member of the London upper class. After all, what would privileged Lord Hamilton be doing that would require any physical interaction at all, much less something with hard contact directly to the face? They could always pin it on Miranda, he supposed, but while he and Thomas surely both appreciated her verve, it was not seemly for a Lady of her station to be seen as… eager. Indeed, were some religious leaders to have their way, a wife ought not to enjoy coupling at all, but rather suffer it as her duty. Before he could puzzle it any further, however, Thomas’ hand had found his chin, directing James’ gaze back at his own. 

“You’re ruminating again,” he pointed out, chastising but gentle.

James sighed, inclining his head into Thomas’ touch. “Forgive me. I promise I’m not unappreciative. I’m only concerned about the practical.”

He found Thomas’ voice to be serious this time, however, and sincere, when he replied: “Will you let it wait? I’m so pleased to have your company for the day, I’d be loathe to see it tempered by shadow, especially one whose gloom need not form yet so early. No one is here now; it may be gone by the end of the day. Your lips are as red as mine, right now, but they too will fade.”

Each time it seemed unavoidable; James let himself be convinced. He straightened out his clothes instead, reclasping his breeches and tucking his shirt, hoping that the layers of clothing would be enough to mask the smell of sex as he meticulously fastened each button on waistcoat from bottom to top. To retie the cravat, he decided, could wait. After all, Thomas was right… there _was_ no one there at that moment to interpret his lack of decorum. 

“...I won't forget.”

The release of tension in Thomas’ shoulders was palpable. “I wouldn't dare imagine you could.” 

Peace had been enough met, though, for them to wander away from the wall, Thomas drawing a book from one of the shelves and then walking to and sitting upon one of the couches. James, as ever, followed, sitting beside him.

“What are we looking at now?” he inquired. 

“I thought we might read aloud for a bit,” answered Thomas. “After all, I did promise you both forms of entertainment.”

James attempted to temper a blush. 

“Have you eaten yet today, Lieutenant?”

“No, I… Well, I rather came straight here,” he admitted. Thomas looked inordinately pleased at that.

“I haven’t eaten either,” he said. “Shall we take lunch?”

“In here?” James asked, startled. 

“Whyever not?” said Thomas. “I can’t imagine a more peaceful setting to partake in good food, good books, and good company.”

James allowed himself a smile. The casual and intimate companionship of reading, of eating, of simply sharing company about the house – this was something he had never had occasion for after his usual trysts. With Miranda he either went home or was scuttled off to meet with her husband; with other girls, previous, they usually parted immediately, for decorum’s sake (excepting, perhaps, a night sleeping in a woman’s bed, though even then he tended to leave quite early in the morning). With Thomas, everything was harmonious. He could have, he realized with a sort of wonderment, his friendship, his partnership, and his bed. It was more than he’d ever expected from his life. It seemed impossible at that moment that it should ever be taken away. 

“All right,” he said. “Let’s eat.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually supposed to go through the whole day, including sex/lunch/reading whatever, but it got quite long, so I stopped it. Next chapter will have greater variety of scenes. 
> 
> Also, I must publicly confess – I made a deal with [BehindBrokenWindows](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BehindBrokenWindows/pseuds/BehindBrokenWindows) to both get our chapters done by last weekend. They got two posted, I got zero. Whoops... Well, since I am late, go reward them with something – perhaps by reading their lovely McGraw/Hamilton fic [here?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11840151) And in the meantime, remember that reviews and love are what keep me writing (and what get me to finish sooner)! 
> 
> As always I am on Tumblr blogging about [Black Sails](http://adhdronanlynch.tumblr.com) and [posting my writing](http://scrollsofiacchus.tumblr.com). Find me there and say hi!


	4. Only Men With Golden Fins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James adjusts to life in the Hamilton household now that he is involved with both married partners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was aiming to get this out Wednesday, HOWEVER since I have not slept yet I'm counting this as Wednesday night and not Thursday morning. Ha, ha. Victory. 
> 
> Content warning for period-accurate language that in contemporary times is used as a slur.

They’d eaten together, feeding fruit to each other’s mouths like characters in a courtly romance. Thomas had read to him, occasionally adding cheeky interludes that had James chasing after the book that he might find proof to his insistence that “They did _not_ say that!”

They’d spoken about Nassau, about the pirates, and then about everything else, Thomas having gotten them off track when he mentioned offhand that as a child he’d longed to grow up to be a buccaneer, swashbuckling and adventuring across the high seas. James hadn’t been able to help but succumb to laughter at that.

“You?” he’d pressed incredulously. Thomas colored, wrinkling his nose in response.

“I couldn’t help it! My mother used to read me Shakespeare, and when I heard that Prince Hamlet, who I’d had a misguided adoration for, had sailed with pirates, my imagination ran away with me. I fancied that if I could fence and I could ride a horse, surely I could become a corsair as easily as any other man.”

“What has riding a horse got to do with it?”

“I haven’t any clue,” confessed Thomas, sheepish and still faintly red. “I suppose I simply thought it was the sort of skill an adventurous man ought to have. I was rather fantastical back then.”

“Oh, yes, _back then_ , I’m sure.”

It was then that Thomas had gotten him back by teasing that James, with his naval experience and title, would in fact be the more fearsome raider of the two. James, recollecting the brawl he’d gotten into on the Hamiltons’ behalf, as well as that rush that overcame him in battle, simply pressed his lips into a grim line.

“You’d have to look a bit less clean-cut,” said Thomas, still playing with the idea for his own amusement. He’d run his hands along the side of James’ face, then pronounced: “You’d look quite dashingly fearsome with an earring, I think. Right – here.” He’d pinched the other’s left earlobe, but then followed it with his mouth. They’d gotten distracted after that.

Later, Thomas had idly asked what James had dreamed of being as a boy. A pirate? A scholar? A king?

“Someone,” he’d said, after perhaps too long lapsed into sombre rumination.

_A man upon my own two feet. A name that meant something to anyone else. Better than my father._

“Just someone?” Thomas had searched his gaze with an expression borne of some cross between puzzlement and intrigue.

James found himself grateful that he was in a position now to know that Thomas was easily dissuaded by a kiss, and the promise of entertaining in the bedroom was soon fulfilled.

For whatever reason, it proved easier to talk to Miranda than Thomas about his past. It was as though Miranda had initiated things with him when he was a whole, or close-to-whole, version of one person, whereas his affair with Thomas was the beginning of… something else. Something created as much by Thomas as anything else. How could he confess to a history when there was no history to whom James felt like with him? This was it. This was his becoming.

Still, Thomas didn’t ask much, that day or in the days following. James could tell he was curious, perhaps a little sorrowful at James’ reticence. James himself felt it ironic. Yes, he was perhaps more candid about the rest of his life with Miranda, but in all other senses his world was coming to revolve almost dangerously around Thomas.

Upon Peter’s return to their conspiring, the haste of their plans had come to slow, slightly—and the scratched lip had been explained away by Thomas being hasty to indulge in an unclipped artichoke (though James personally thought the story ridiculous). The immediate damage that had been wrought by Alfred Hamilton had been contained to whatever extent possible, and what remained was the crawling-pace, dangerous game of politics: discerning weaknesses, looking for opportunities for bargaining, wheedling down the fence-sitters, strategizing, strategizing, strategizing. Little changed day to day; rather, they regrouped twice or thrice weekly, sometimes less. The time spent waiting would have been agonizing if the situation were the same as it had been earlier in the month, but it was decidedly not. Rather, everything on all fields had changed so simultaneously that James could not help but find himself categorizing his life as of late into two distinct eras: Before Thomas, and After Thomas. Were he not so consumed with everything else, he might have resented himself for it; indeed, occasionally, if he had loosened his own mind with drink, the thought conjured in his head of whether this was fair to Miranda. After all, hers was the first affair, and ought that not have been the factor which changed him from guest to participant in the Hamilton household? If he couldn’t suppress the thought, he often reasoned it away that entering Thomas’ bed had been the greater disturbance for him being a man. If he was very far under the influence of whiskey (or particularly stupefying sex), however, he might find himself admitting that things with Thomas were just different, everything about it sharper and more vivid. This didn’t happen often, so the thought was normally left alone until it flit away.

In all fairness, besides, things had changed with Miranda, too, once he and Thomas consummated their affair. For one thing, he more regularly stayed the night over at the manor. When it had just been Miranda and himself, they had been more hushed about it, even beyond her assurance that Thomas would pay no mind; it was hurried trysts in late evenings, deliciously dangerous fucks in the opera box, or the one or two times after that first incident whereupon she would straddle him in the back of the carriage and lift her skirts to lower herself onto his cock, their congress brought to swifter fruition by the bumping of the vehicle over cobbles. It had seemed respectful to keep it away from Thomas’ eyes and home, not to linger too long, although she did not shy away from kissing him or rubbing his shoulders when the three of them lounged together.

Now, although he could not stay every night for appearances’ sake, James regularly stayed at the manor as a guest of one or the other Hamilton’s beds. Some evenings, he would leave dinner for Miranda’s bedroom, enjoying a more luxurious and thorough coupling than he would have Pre-Thomas, and then leave her to sleep in her husband’s bed, where he would awake with Thomas’ warm cheek on his abdomen and lazy fingers slowly stroking his prick. It had been to his great relief that Miranda seemed to give her silent blessing to his affair with her husband in much the same manner that Thomas had silently blessed hers with James.

Thanks to his involvement with Thomas, it had in fact become safer, more at home, to occupy the manor so regularly. To be alone with Miranda, a married Lady, was scandalous; but to spend hours in office with the Lord Hamilton was no social faux pas, especially considering his established position as advisor and consultant. James relished this, relished the relative freedom of privacy, something which he had never been afforded at sea. Land- and sea-farers looked upon sodomy with similar disgust and wrath, but no one had basis to question his close involvement with the other here, save perhaps Peter Ashe, who seemed content not to ask, whatever he thought. Now, in between plotting and reporting on political maneuvers, there was a kind of bliss to be found in the Hamilton household, one that James was all too disinterested in dissecting.

Interestingly, though he spent more and more time with Thomas, he found that the man had a slower sexual appetite than his wife did. Miranda could be voracious, almost predatory, and it was obvious how she had managed to seduce other men before even while wed; she was enticingly unafraid, and relished a good fuck, ever a match for the healthy libido of a strong young Navyman. Thomas, while he never tired of having his hands on James and adored to kiss him at any time of day, nevertheless was occasionally too tired to exert himself so enthusiastically (though on his keener days he demonstrated titanic stamina). James’ and Thomas’ nights never lacked for affection, but often included Thomas reading aloud from a good book, or kissing all of his freckles while claiming to be finding constellations on his skin. These were the moments James privately treasured most, and also partly what prompted him to wonder if Thomas ever did his duties with his wife at all, or if they had always had an understanding of his celibacy from her.

One day he braved himself enough to ask Thomas about this. James was lying nude on his stomach across Thomas’ bed, going over a list they had constructed of city figures who might be persuaded to lend support to their venture, while Thomas reclined perpendicular to him against the pillows, in nothing but an undershirt, legs comfortably strewn across James’ back as he read from one of his books.

“Have you and Miranda ever been together as husband or wife, or have you always remained… separate in such pursuits?”

He couldn’t say where the question had come from; just that both of the Hamiltons had had a liberalizing influence on his sense of propriety and curiosity. The both of them encouraged questions and openness with such fervor that it was difficult to feel a sense of restraint when thoughts like this occurred to him.

He could _feel_ Thomas’ bemused expression, brow undoubtedly raised, prickling at the back of his neck, and pressed his cheek to the sheets to bury a flush.

The answer came after a moment of contemplation. “The first year Miranda and I were married, we were intimate with sufficient regularity; I fulfilled that obligation. However when it became clear that we were unlikely to be successful in producing a child, I admit I became… less reliable on that front." Thomas' voice betrayed something like contrition. "We spoke about our relative desires, eventually, and established the contract of permissions we have now: she may pursue her own companions, within reason and discretion, and I would be released from duty to her in turn, excepting certain occasions.”

James shifted his head again, turning to face his gaze in Thomas’ direction this time, curious.

Thomas noticed his expression and smiled. “I love my wife very much, Lieutenant. I am happy to lay with her when she desires it – usually on birthdays or holidays, or during a dry spell – and I am equally happy that she find satisfaction on her own terms. We are comfortable with one another, even with our differing… predilections.”

“Or the same predilections,” pointed out James. “Considering you both seem to have an interest in Navymen.” He smirked and Thomas delighted him with a laugh, shifting his legs so that he could lean forward and capture James’ mouth in a kiss.

“You are something special to me,” he murmured against James’ ear, having drawn from the kiss, then nuzzled his nose along James’ jaw, pressing his lips to his neck. “Miranda and I are of shared mind on that.”

The note those words struck in his chest thrummed with a more thrilling vibrato than James was likely to admit.

Another time, compelled more and more often as of late to uncover every nook and passage forming the Lord with whom he lay, James dared to ask about Thomas’ previous lovers.

This time, they were holed up in James’ own apartment, something rather new for both of them, as it was significantly more comfortable in the Hamilton home, and James’ boarding house room was not something he felt particularly eager to boast of to his lord or lady either. Thomas had come to fetch him by carriage, having already been out speaking with a potential ally, with the intent of convalescing back at his home. But the London rainfall that had begun lighter soon fell in sheets, rattling the shutters with full force, and it was deemed smarter not to attempt to brave the streets again. For caution’s sake.

(Privately James thought Thomas might be overstating his propensity for caution.)

So instead they had settled in James’ room, keeping each other warm with hands and mouths, transmitting heat through bare skin, which was when James blurted the question.

As always, when it came to inquiries of a personal nature, Thomas seemed to consider thoughtfully before answering. “Well, my first were at Eton, unsurprisingly.”

The tile of James’ head seemed to successfully convey his curiosity at the qualifier, so Thomas continued. “Well, a boarding school full of only young, hormonal boys – you can imagine. And of course there was fagging—Do you know about this?”

James shook his head.

“No? It was a bit like being a squire – the younger boys were paired with older boys, their seniors, and served as, well… like servants. Like a valet, in a way; they were expected to take care of the senior’s things, fetch their belongings, tend to their needs, so on and so forth. Some older boys took it too far, naturally.” Thomas’ lips were pursed, belying the ‘naturally.’ “I managed to avoid such… favors, but it wasn’t uncommon; almost encouraged, with some practices, really. You were meant to aim to pick out the prettiest young boys to be your fag, and there was a culture of sort of… competition, exploration, whatever you might call it. Buggery itself was still punished, of course. Lesser infractions sometimes, too, but they were considered a matter of course, I suppose one might put it.”

James listened to all this silently, taking it in. The culture of the upper classes in their youths, particularly in schooling, was not something that had ever particularly occurred to him, other than in bitterly reflecting the superior quality of education to that which he could provide himself. He hadn’t considered the single-sex boarding and what might come of it, almost similar to the dense cohabitation present in the Navy or on sailor ships. Finally, he mused on how it related to his original question. “And you had a… boy? A fag?”

“No—or, well. Yes, there were fewer seniors than younger boys, and all were expected to be served, including myself. But I hadn’t any sexual experiences come out of that, I preferred to use the position to divert harsher punishments from the schoolmasters, who often left such things up to the prefect boys. It was simply one aspect of the culture of the place, the sort of thing which made it all seem more normal. It was another senior boy who I knew and was close friends with, with whom I had relations.”

“What was his name?” James found himself asking, his intrigue at the mental image of young Thomas outweighing the distaste of the Eton servile system.

“Henry,” answered Thomas, and his lips spread in fond memory, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “He was a rebel, a troublemaker and a fool, so I liked him. It turned out the affection was returned. We… dabbled, but before he graduated, he was sent away. Family turmoil.”

James mulled on this, rolling it through his mind like a candy on his tongue, letting it dissolve and absorbing the taste of it. There wasn’t so much the jealousy he’d been expecting. More envy towards the past, that he had not also been an Eton schoolboy, just for a moment, to have known young Thomas in all his carefree tomfoolery, tumbled about between sheets after curfew. He would have hated a place like the college as a boy, he knew, but he thought he would have admired Thomas. “What was it like?”

Thomas let his head roll back, resting the back of his skull against the rain-pattered windowpane. “Clumsy. Thrilling.”

Thrilling was a word for it. James wasn’t sure he would call his own first encounter with Thomas exactly clumsy, though. Perhaps it bade him better prepared that he had bedded before, even if only women.

Thomas, familiar with James’ rumination face, leaned forward again to press a kiss behind his lover’s ear. “Did you still want to know the others?”

“Yes,” said James, but he let Thomas kiss his neck more first, breathing a sigh to match the fluttering of his eyelids. “You’re quite distracting. It’s no wonder the Eton boy liked you.”

“Eton boy _s_ ,” corrected Thomas, pressing his lips to his jaw ever so lightly. “After Henry left, another boy, Roger, tried to harass me about our fooling. I told him that Henry was only being clever for choosing a partner older and better than the trembling junior boys so many of his ilk thought fun to use. He dared me to prove it, so I did.”

Roger didn’t sound Henry’s match in appeal at all, but James found the idea of a cocky and handsome teenaged Thomas challenging another boy into wanting him quite endearing. “Were you successful in your proving?”

Thomas actually laughed against his neck, drawing back a bit to grin fondly at James, who felt that familiar desire of wishing he had the ability to hide the blush from his fair skin. “Successful enough that Francis came ‘round for a go, too. Another boy, Ralph, did as well, but I didn’t let him have anything.” His grin was fading to a grimmer look of disapproval. “He was regularly abusive to the younger boys and used the fags for his own pleasure. I didn’t want to reward that, nor touch him at all, to be perfectly honest. I think I would have felt dirty.”

Cast into solemnity once again, James silently pressed a kiss to Thomas’ shoulder, his turn to bestow affection. Thomas smiled again at that, finding and grasping James’ hand.

“That was all, anyway. A busy senior year. Henry was the only one I was with more than twice.”

James wondered which of the other boys had been the twice, Roger or Francis, but didn’t ask. “And after?”

“After I completed my education, I was married,” said Thomas with a wry smile. “My days of schoolboy experimentation were over. Though it was hard to mind, once I had met Miranda.”

The warmth he held for his wife was positively palpable in his voice, and again James was struck with envy. The Hamiltons had found an incredible fortune in one another. He shelved this feeling, though, and focused on the conversation. “No one after that?” He recalled Thomas had called his Eton dalliances ‘first,’ and had assumed from that that there were more post-schooling.

“One,” admitted Thomas. “A valet. He was called John.”

James’ brow arched curiously.

“He… well, obviously we were in close contact regularly. I thought perhaps I was imagining things, but…”

One of the joys of Thomas was that, despite his more golden complexion, he blushed far more easily and brightly than did James, who was otherwise disadvantaged by fairness. James smiled at the color in Thomas’ cheeks now. “He made like an Eton boy and propositioned you?”

“He kissed me,” confessed Thomas. He really did seem embarrassed, a fact which James adored to no end. “At first I was shocked and rejected him—I was devoted to my wife, after all—but I admittedly was making excuses out of fear. He kept pursuing me until I eventually gave in. Miranda knew,” he added quickly, as though James would ever have entertained otherwise.

James resisted teasing for Thomas’ sake, only nodding along and tracing his fingers over Thomas’ shoulder. He wondered at the boldness of such a servant.

“Anyway, it ended quickly.” Thomas grimaced, and James suddenly developed a strong distaste for John the Valet.

“What happened?”

“He sought to abuse my favor and his position,” said Thomas with a frown. “I cut things off and dismissed him. Not with a recommendation; that would have been cruel. But I couldn’t stand to have him in my home after that. I don’t know where he is now.”

There were very few people in the world, considered James, brow creased, that he would not hurt to eradicate the hint of regret tainting Thomas’ voice at this moment. Compelled to dissuade his melancholy expression, he claimed Thomas’ mouth in a kiss. Thomas allowed this, sinking gratefully into the kiss and suckling his lower lip, before pulling back. The tension in his face had eased, and James’ shoulders relaxed faintly.

“I’m not upset about it now,” he said, cupping James’ jaw. “Everything in the past has led me to where I am today, with you.”

Surely some unendingly cruel or merciful god had crafted this creature from a golden statue and enlivened him with the touch of a divine finger? Surely it was some angelic trick, to possess the affections of such a man? James kissed the corner of his mouth, and then the other side, and then his lips fully again, warmly, the only way he could conceive to convey the reciprocity of that emotion. Thomas smiled against each one, kissing him back thrice, thumb brushing over the shell of his ear gently, then rested his forehead against James’.

“What about you?”

“Me?” James was quizzical, having lost whatever train of thought Thomas had held onto.

“Past lovers and affairs. Who are yours?”

Backwards was not a direction James was interested in pursuing his own life, but Thomas was so tender in this moment that it would be physically painful to deny him.

“I haven’t been with any… men.”

“Not men, then.” Thomas seemed unfazed by James’ inexperience with his own sex, a fact which amazed and gratified him.

“I don’t know. No one, really, of consequence. Your wife, I suppose.”

Thomas smiled at that last one, but the smile was overlain on something wistful, something morose in his eyes. James immediately felt badly, and looked at his lap, trying to summon up the urge to continue.

“There was one girl. Anna. In Padstow.”

The flicker of surprise and eagerness was so plainly evident in Thomas’ brow that James’ guilt thickened. Had he really been so withdrawn?

“Tell me more?” murmured Thomas, and James did his best to be articulate. It was difficult to summon words, or divine what there was that was important enough to tell. It felt like sharing the story of a different man.

“I offered to marry her,” he relayed at last, “when I was up for promotion, saying that I’d stay instead if she’d be my wife. But she refused me, and so I returned to the Navy and became a lieutenant.” He creased his lips shut, not offering further information.

Thomas seemed to sense that this was the end of what James would share, and didn’t press him, only crooking his lips. “I’m sure she was lovely, if not very clever.”

James furrowed his brow, glancing at Thomas. “Not very clever?”

Thomas’ lips twitched. “Well, she can’t have been; she refused you.”

“Oh, and you’re very smart then, I suppose, for having me?” teased James, pressing his forehead to Thomas’ again.

“I am the cleverest of men,” agreed Thomas with cheeky false stoicism. “I’m well-educated, you know. I have cultivated an acute understanding of good taste in men.”

“Oh, yes? What’s good taste, then?”

“Not Eton boys,” said Thomas with a smirk, kissing James lightly.

“Not even Henry?” teased James.

“I would have one disagreeable, uneducated, redhead Lieutenant over a thousand Henrys,” said Thomas, leaning over James, who let himself fall back on the bed. As his blond lord began laying kisses down his chest, James wondered how he had ever gotten so lucky. He remembered Anna’s even fairer blonde hair, her blue dress, her wringing hands, her eyelashes, and thought, fingers tangled in Thomas’ hair: _I would give a hundred thousand Annas for just one of you_.

* * *

 

Miranda had been cross that neither man had made it back home due to the storm, though Miranda cross was far from actual anger and closer to purposeful scolding. (Thomas had assured James that Miranda possessed the capabilities of great fury, but he had yet to see it.) She had demanded that they make it up to them, and while Thomas promised to do so with gifts, James was entreated to provide his compensatory service in the bedroom, to which he gladly obliged. He’d lavished her cunt with his tongue and fingers until she came twice, at which she was finally satisfied, and drew him up to lay beside her, both heavy of breath and sweating, in her large bed. He idly wondered why her bed was so much wider than the one he and Thomas shared. Perhaps it was in consideration for her keeping partners.

Eventually, when the both of them had recovered, she spoke – something which piqued James’ curiosity, as they did not normally take up conversation post-coitus. Ordinarily they conversed over food or during travel, more often when Thomas was not home. He realized belatedly, processing her words a second late, that it was in fact this subject, her husband, of which she spoke.

“Thomas mentioned something to me the other day,” she was saying. “Off-hand, do forgive him for it. He was simply commenting that you seem hesitant to talk about your past with him, and wondered if there was something about it that made you unwilling to share.”

James looked up at her from her chest, while she played with his hair. She glanced back at him.

“I was surprised to hear of this, because you’ve never had a problem sharing with me.”

He blinked at her, wrinkling his nose rather than answer.

She pursed her lips, continuing her stroking. “He already knows you’re an orphan, so I know it’s not that. And from everything else you’ve mentioned to me over the months, James, I find myself wondering what could possibly be preventing you from sharing your history with him. Forgive me, but while you have experienced dreadful misfortune, I simply don’t find your story so reprehensible or shocking. Not in such a way that would justify such an attachment to privacy even with a lover.” He had not told her everything exactly, not about the Thing in the dark recesses of his chest, nor the bloodier ends of battles, nor every in and out. There was darkness to him, and roughness, for certain. But she was also right. Those were not really his history, they were just secrets. His past held nothing so utterly terrible to hear.

When James didn’t answer, she arched a dark brow, nudging him. “James? Do you care to share with me why you’re withholding yourself from my husband?”

Sans context, the situation was laughable – here was an esteemed Lady having an affair with a lower class sailor, and instead of entreating secrecy, she was demanding he be more open with her husband. Of course, most affairs didn’t also involve a third party. Sighing, James shifted that he might sit a bit further up.

“I’m not… keeping anything from him,” he admitted at last, running his fingers through his own hair. “I just … I don’t find it relevant. It feels strange to answer him about a young James McGraw, tell him tales from my history, as though they’ll enlighten him about me. I feel that everything important that I am, that I will be, has been formed from the day I met him onwards.” There was a hovering sense of guilt accompanying the confession, present even in the face of Miranda’s grace about it, her hand comforting at his back. He could only dare hope she understood it as something other than unequal favor, somehow knew that she was different than her husband rather than lesser, that she had a power and a warmth and an addictive openness to her that made storytelling simple and unburdened. He felt bitter that he was not able to say it.

“Tell him that,” Miranda said, as though everything were so simple, as though she were infinitely wise (which, without a doubt, she was). That, and she also understood her husband and James both.

“Tell him that,” James repeated, nonetheless, with his trademark skepticism. He frowned at her.

“Yes,” she stated, uninterested in his tone. “I love my husband dearly, dear James, and if he is made to feel maligned by something you are or aren’t doing, I will have you rectify it. I think he deserves the knowledge of what you’ve told me, don’t you?”

A new guilt-knife cut to the bone.

“...How?”

“In English, I expect,” said Miranda, and lithely she drew herself up from the bed to stand, gliding to her discarded garments, “as he also tells me you have still not yet mastered _Español_.” And there it was again, the coy and glimmering cheek in her tone, and James could not help but smile through his pursed lips, even at the obvious dismissal.

He swung his feet off the side of her bed to find his own hastily stripped clothes, tugging them back on. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“That’s ‘Yes, my Lady’ to you, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, my Lady.” His smile remained as he finished redressing in his clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fagging," while a really unpleasant term, was an actual practice that lasted for a very long time, not that I knew much about it before I researched for this chapter. So was the soliciting of sexual favors from the boys in the servile position. Corporal punishment was also super big. Basically, Eton (and probably other schools of its ilk) was a really shitty place. 
> 
> I also couldn't find decent information on the likelihood of someone inheriting Thomas' position to have attended university, so I worded things a little vaguely and just didn't mention it. If he did attend university, he didn't have any significant lovers in it, is what you can take from this. 
> 
> Also, this chapter came with more difficulty than some of the other ones, so please forgive me if it falls short! I hope you will appreciate it nonetheless and keep reading – I have good kinky times planned for next chapter, since I seem to be rotating smut and fluff here. 
> 
> As always, find me on Tumblr on my [Black Sails](http://adhdronanlynch.tumblr.com/) or [writing](http://scrollsofiacchus.tumblr.com/) blogs! xo


	5. With the Two Anatomies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas has a proposition for James.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, here's the thing: I actually have about 8k penned out for these shenanigans, but I've been writing for the past approximately nineteen hours, I'm fucking tired, and I've been wanting to get this chapter out for like a week. The problem is, it's big. It's smutty. It's monstrously pornographic, and unfortunately there's really NO reasonable cut-off point right now for me to split the smut in two. So, to my own dismay, I just have to chop it at the early scene break, leaving a very short intro-lude (this chapter), as a small update before I actually finish the rest and post it as a long next chapter. 
> 
> The good news is: a) you'll know what's going to happen; b) I DO have a lot written and will finish the full chapter within a day or three if it's the last thing I do; and c) if I _start_ wordcount at the point it gets nsfw, I have 3,537 words and they're only 30-50% through being naughty. That's a lot of dirty to look forward to. 
> 
> So, basically, keep your knickers on for now, kids. Just wanted to get _something_ up; the rest is coming.

James had intended to follow through on his promise, but Thomas had accosted him first. He could count the times the lord had come into his flat on one hand; it wasn’t something that bothered him, just a necessary feature of their arrangement. It was neither safe nor comfortable. So it was to his utter surprise when Thomas showed up twice in the span of three days, this time already waiting in James’ bedroom—awkwardly perched on the edge of the mattress—when the lieutenant arrived back from a meeting with one of his Naval colleagues. Pausing at the door at the sight of him, James grew a surprised smile, taking off his tricorn and setting it down on the dresser. 

“My lord.”

“Lieutenant,” greeted Thomas with an answering smile, having stood at James’ entrance, all habit and propriety. “I hope I’m not intruding too terribly… your landlady let me in. I told her it was urgent business.”

James shifted his weight, not sure what to do with his hands. Normally he clasped them behind his back, but that was awfully formal for Thomas being in his bedroom again. He settled for dangling them at his sides, though his fingers curled restlessly. Was Thomas here for an illicit liaison or actual business? He didn’t want to misjudge. “Have I forgotten some meeting?”

“No, I’m afraid this is all me.” Thomas seated himself again, spreading a hand to suggest that James join him. “I recalled that you had a meeting today, but I hope my timing isn’t too awful?”

He was always so utterly genteel. James resisted a twitch of the lips and sat on the bed beside him, tucking back an escaped lock of his own hair. “No, I’m done for the day now that I’ve returned. Are we… going out?” He didn’t know whether he should settle or not. 

“I hadn’t planned anything,” admitted Thomas with a wry smile. “I only wanted to talk about something privately.”

Oh thank god. James immediately reached for his boots, leaning down to tug them off of his aching feet. He rubbed the sole of his foot, frowning. A pebble had gotten wedged in his left boot earlier, and now there was a pain in his arch. Then Thomas’ words sunk in, and he tilted his head to the side to glance up at him. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all.” Nevertheless, there was a pause between his words, as though he were considering something delicate. “Did you know Miranda’s birthday is coming up?”

He hadn’t, and it was an entirely unpredicted turn to the conversation. Was there to be an event of some sort…? Surely if it were so simple, the Hamiltons would have delivered an invitation in the customary manner. James straightened, then rolled his shoulders and pressed his hands at the small of his back to crack it, privately enjoying Thomas’ almost horrified eye-widening at the popping sounds. “I don’t believe I had been aware. Go on?”

Thomas licked his lips and swallowed, which James guessed was aftermath of being perturbed by his contortions. “Ordinarily I give her whatever gift she asks of me; you know as well as I that Miranda knows her own wants and tempers not the hazards of anyone else’s guess.” James smirked in agreement. “This usually includes the devotion of a day to just to the two of us; one of the few occasions on which we… have congress, if you will. I may have mentioned this.”

He had, and James was intrigued by his mentioning it again now. To imagine either Thomas or Miranda was not at all displeasing to the mind’s eye; imagining them together, however, took on a different cast knowing of Thomas’ proclivities or lack thereof. He wondered if the lord managed to enjoy himself, or if it was little more than obliged drudgery, and then immediately felt abhorrent towards himself for even considering such a thing. It felt like an invasion of privacy even in his imagination. Belatedly, he realized Thomas was likely waiting for his reply, and he scratched his chin. 

“You have, yes.” He was cautious when eyeing his companion. Would Thomas read anything upon his face? He kept his facial muscles determinedly neutral, though he was admittedly curious. 

Thomas, however, was for once not looking back at him. The man had an unusual propensity for intense eye contact which had often wearied James, yet now he felt its lack like a loss of limb. Still, he remained silent. It was better to let him work to his point on his own. 

And he did. “You’ve been spending less time with my wife as of late, I think.” Finally Thomas’ gaze found its way back to James. It was unaccusatory but an uncomfortable heat prickled under James’ collar nonetheless. 

“I… suppose that’s so.” He hadn’t thought about it, really. Of course, his head had been between her legs just recently in payment for himself and Thomas having been kept out so late. But in the past weeks, his lust had fixated itself on Miranda’s husband with little hint of ceasure. Miranda hadn’t said anything of it, though now he felt a nudging tendril of guilt in his chest at the possibility of having spurned her unintentionally. His fingers fiddled with one another, entwined in his lap now. Was it impossible for him to be a good partner to them both? Miranda had spoken of his tendency to be more open with her than her husband about his past; now Thomas was pointing out his gravitation towards him rather than his wife for physical intimacy as of late. Before he could ruminate on this further, however, he forced himself to pay attention to the conversation at hand. 

“I don’t suppose,” Thomas was now continuing, and at least he looked about as awkward as James felt, “... you haven’t lost, ah, interest?”

Not for the first time, but perhaps neither frequently enough, James wondered what sort of life he was living. He imagined the scenario played out in a satirical puppet show: 

_‘Oh, La-Di-Dah, Mister Navy Man,’_ said his imaginary Lord Handsome Pants puppet, ‘ _I DO hope you’re still illegitimately fucking my wife!’_

 _‘Gracious me,’_ said an absurdly ginger Mister Navy Man in answer, ‘ _I almost forgot about her with your prick up my bum!’_

 _‘Tee Hee Hee Hee!’_ they both chorused in amusement. 

It would be bawdily performed outside taverns in streets of ill-repute, and condemned by the church. Street urchins would parrot the dialogue and use it to offend young girls hiding in their nurses’ skirts. Nuns would box their ears if they heard it. 

“...James?”

Oh, fuck. James yanked himself out of his reverie, blinking at Thomas. “Apologies, my Lord. No.” 

After a moment, it occurred that this might merit more detail, and he added: “I have been admittedly… distracted,” and at this both men’s mouths curved in ghost smiles reflexively, “but not disinterested. I’m sorry, has she felt neglected?”

Thomas seemed more at ease now that James had answered him and not kicked him out of his room for the inquiry—really, he could pick the oddest times to showcase his rare moments of self-consciousness. “No matter,” he said of James’ question. “That’s good, then. You see, she has a request this year that is a little broader of audience than her usual desires.”

It took a moment to follow what Thomas might be referring to, and then it clicked. Miranda, birthday, bedding Thomas, broader… audience? James tilted his head. “...Oh?”

The pink that tickled Thomas’ cheeks now did not resemble shyness, and was closer to the flush of conspiracy, as he cocked his head down a bit with a gleam in his eye. “She’d like to ask you and I both to lay with her.” There was a pause, after which he remembered to assure hurriedly—“Should you be comfortable with the idea, of course.” 

Now the tawdry puppet show from earlier did not seem to do the day justice, and James refigured the situation in his head more alike to a pornographic story. He did not know how his head or how his emotions felt about the idea quite yet, but his cock made no haste expressing its interest. The gears in his head shuddered and wound, attempting to process this into a scene he could imagine without descending into distracted vignettes of either Hamilton, and when this failed, he rolled his lower lip unconsciously between his teeth. He half expected Thomas to prod him again with another ‘James?’ while his calamitous brain trudged slowly, but to his surprise the next voice he heard was his own, low and a bit thick, like it was hoarse or sticky.

“Yes.”

Oh. Well. He hadn’t thought he’d decided yet, but there it was. James cursed his complexion at the familiar heat of blood rushed his cheeks, knowing it would paint him visibly red. 

To his credit, Thomas also looked faintly taken aback, though not displeased. “You don’t need to think about it?”

“I was trying to,” admitted James, “but my tongue got ahead of me.”

He was rewarded with a tittering laugh. James wondered idly what it was about Thomas’ eyes that made them so capable of seeming twinkling. 

“Miranda has fanciful ideas sometimes; don’t feel pressured if you’d rather not meet us together. By all means, she is a spoiled woman.”

“Oh yes,” drawled James, “ _Miranda_ has fanciful ideas.” He cocked a purposeful brow, and Thomas’ lips pursed together in a terrible facsimile of sternness (it ended up just looking like a squished smirk). 

“Horrendously practical man.”

“What? Sorry I couldn’t hear you through the clouds your head is stuck in.”

Thomas wrinkled his nose and bumped his shoulder. “Clouds I’ve managed to convince _you_ to share occupation in, if I recall.”

“Well,” said James, shrugging, “It’s difficult to resist a handsome face.”

Thomas smiled wryly at that. “Now you’re flattering me; but it won’t work. I’d much rather you be interested in my ideals.”

James was interested in Thomas’ ideals, but could not find it in himself to better merit a world in which he couldn’t also have Thomas’ hands and feet and shoulders and chest and nose and jaw and brow and teeth. Internally, a shadow of a frown possessed him; this sort of attachment would do no one any good. But shadows could remain in the dark for now. 

“If I recall, you wanted a partner that would challenge you,” he said instead of voicing any of this. 

“I did,” admitted Thomas with a self-satisfied sigh at the recollection. “And you still do.”

James harbored a small smile. “Miranda’s birthday…” He faltered for a noun to describe it.

“Gift?” suggested Thomas prudently. 

“Gift,” agreed James. “I… You may tell her that if it is truly her wish that I join the affair, I will do so willingly.” His throat swallowed, suspecting that this might be a terrible idea somehow but unable to formulate justification.

Meanwhile Thomas’ breath caught softly, imperceptible to the eye that was not looking. 

James’ eye was looking. 

“She will be, I’m sure,” sighed Thomas, “elated.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: based on canon timelines and my plan for this fic, Miranda's birthday falls somewhere in August. I've decided that she's on the Leo side of a Leo-Virgo cusp. 
> 
> Oh, also, I'm a little disappointed in all y'all – has no one caught the reference behind this fic's title(s) yet? Or just not spoken up?


	6. Rocking With Them To Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James and Thomas celebrate Miranda's birthday in the bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. Finally. It's only taken me weeks to write, but it's a behemoth of a chapter at nearly 9.5k, which outranks all other chapters, so I dearly hope it was well-conceived. 
> 
> Forewarning: this chapter is more pornographic than all of my other pornographic chapters. 
> 
> Other content warnings include: like, one throwaway line that references period-typical cissexism; stockings that I didn't really bother to reference in the second half, although they do continue to be there; and at least a couple instances of unnecessary alliteration.
> 
> Enjoy.

James had seen a hurricane before. On a long tour across the Atlantic, before he’d risen to the rank of Lieutenant. If he cast his memory backwards he could remember the horrendous, beating wind, the foreboding darkness of the sky, the silhouettes of waves and masts, everything leaning, stretching, breaking, tearing apart. It had been indescribably powerful, shaken him to his core with something far closer to a thrill than it had any right to elicit. He had been lucky to escape it alive; many hadn’t. It was unequivocally the most fearsome event he had ever had the misfortune to bear witness too. 

But he had not been as nervous then as he was now. 

“I didn’t know if I should be better dressed for the occasion,” he was muttering to Thomas, who was ushering him towards Miranda’s bedroom. 

“Do you have fancier dress?” asked Thomas curiously, removing James’ tricorn for him and guiding him towards the door.

“No, not really,” admitted James.

“Then I imagine it’s rather a moot point,” said Thomas, and James’ neck prickled with embarrassed warmth. 

Miranda was out with lady friends being treated to sweets, and would return shortly. After agreeing to the birthday arrangement, James had foolishly neglected to grill Thomas for further information, until the other had delivered an official invitation to James’ lodgings, requesting him at their home on the appropriate date ‘to celebrate.’ He hadn’t had a chance to really see Thomas ahead of that time and ask what to expect, though he had to admit of that notion that he may have just chickened out besides. 

Now the hour was here, his fingers were trembling, and it was a hurricane once again, only far more daunting. He had to curse himself for his nerves. It was not as though any of this was new; he had slept with Thomas a dozen times or more and Miranda twice that, at least. Nor were either unaware of the other’s trysts, and indeed it wasn’t as though James hadn’t kissed husband or wife in the presence of their spouse before. They often spent time all the three of them, lounging and intimate, in such a way that this ought to be easy. James wasn’t sure why it wasn’t. Perhaps it was simply the anticipation, the Scheduled Event aspect of it; perhaps it was that he had never actually participated in the act with multiple partners before. A second, smarter part of him suspected that it might be related to the feeling of being different people with each of the Hamiltons; neither one false, but both bearing a different balance of traits, wearing a different face, showing a different truth. This thought made him feel uncomfortable and guilty, so he largely ignored that part of him when it whispered such suggestions in his head. 

“James,” murmured Thomas’ lips at his ear, grasping his shoulders from behind. “Aren’t you going to go inside?”

Oh. The door to the bedchamber had been pushed open waiting for him. Not trusting himself to speak, James stepped past the threshold curtly. 

Once inside, Thomas removed his wig, setting it on a wig stand on the dresser which stood against the wall. He set James’ hat beside it, then worked to loosen his cravat. Over the past several weeks James had learned that, aside from more inventive uses in drawing rooms when Miranda wasn’t home, Thomas generally hated the accessory, finding it restrictive. The familiar movement, the recognition of his own intimacy with Thomas’ quirks and knowledge of his habits, served to add a droplet of ease to James’ bearings, and he contented himself with watching, his own hands fiddling behind his back. 

Thomas unearthed a bottle of wine from a cabinet, along with three glasses, which he set out on the writing desk against the opposite wall from the door, pouring out two servings. James wondered at the convenient availability of the beverage, but was nevertheless grateful. Perhaps it would loosen his inhibitions slightly. James gravitated to where Thomas now stood, accepting the glass proffered him and drinking deeply. Thomas smiled his crooked smile a bit. 

“You needn’t look like we are sending you into battle, you know,” he said, quirking a brow. “You realize you have no obligation to stay should you lose comfort with the idea?”

It hadn’t really occurred to James, honestly; somehow his anxiety had not yet translated into thoughts of leaving. He nodded stiffly anyway, taking another long swallow to stifle any need to actually use his voice. 

“It’s just – new,” he finally rasped, feeling as though he’d been silent for too long. He wasn’t usually… shy and reserved, exactly, in the bedroom. This awkwardness was not his default state and he rather detested it. He took another greedy swallow of the red wine. 

Thomas took two steps with his long legs until he was standing behind him. He traced his hands along the shoulders of James’ coat, in towards the neck, which he caressed lightly with his thumbs. His neck must have been cold because Thomas’ hands felt impossibly warm, a live heat. Sighing, he stretched his neck, letting his head roll to one side. Thomas kissed the exposed skin there, and James shivered.

“Are you nervous?” asked Thomas, softly, near to a whisper.

James did not want to answer this question. “... Yes. Somewhat.”

“Are you certain about doing this?”

_No, but I’m certain that I’m going to follow through on my decision._

“Yes.”

“Does it help if I distract you?”

The question felt irrelevant, since James was certain that once Miranda arrived his ability to be distracted would falter and the effect would become insufficient. But at the moment, Thomas was dragging his teeth across the sliver of bare skin on his neck, and he was entirely unmotivated to have that cease. 

“...Yes.”

Thomas kissed his jaw. “Take off your coat and boots.”

A tiny shiver traveled James’ spine at the words, recalling their similarity to his and Thomas’ first encounter. After setting down the wine glass, he obeyed with slightly fumbling hands and Thomas’ assistance, hanging his coat and leaving his boots by the door, as he had done then. Thomas removed his own, too, and then took James’ upper arms by the hand, turning him towards himself. 

“May I kiss you, Lieutenant?” His tone bore the wry memory of every time before.

“Please,” breathed James, and Thomas did. When their lips met it was like a conduit, inhaling Thomas’ warmth and ease into himself, liquid amber, honeyed brandy. James let his arms slide around Thomas’ waist, dragging him closer, kissing him deeper. Today was a day removed from time; no responsibilities, just this. It was both alien and delectable, like some drug to the senses. Thomas’ fingers at his shoulders were an anchor, his teeth at his lip a gift. 

“I see you two have broken the wine out without me,” came a voice, elevated and lovely, from just within the door. James’ heart pounded as he stepped back, cautiously meeting the gaze of Miranda, who had just entered. His twisted nerves were drowned in a rush by a flood of aesthetic appreciation; she was clad in one of the lovelier dresses he had seen her in yet, the rich maroon complementing her fair skin and rouged cheeks, genteel and luxurious like herself. 

“Happy birthday, my Lady,” James said, bowing and lifting her hand to his lips in a greeting kiss. Thomas met her with a squeeze of the arm and a kiss to the side of her mouth, smiling as he always did when his wife entered the room.

“You look lovely,” said the Lord of the house. 

James nodded stiffly in agreement, straightening. “I agree,” he said. “Stunning.”

Miranda’s smile was broad and open as she turned to tug off her gloves and set them atop the dresser alongside Thomas’ wig and James’ hat. “I ought to wear this dress more often; you two are most flattering,” she teased, though she was clearly pleased at the display. Completing the removal of her gloves, she returned to where they both stood, lifting a bare hand to cup James’ cheek. 

“I am truly pleased you are here, James,” she said, and he felt a warmth in his torso as though she had lit a fire in the hearth inside of him. 

“I couldn’t dream of denying you,” he said, meeting her endless brown eyes. 

Her lips curved upwards at the sides, catlike. “Will you do me a favor, then?”

James had reverted to his natural military posture, straight-backed and hands clasped behind him. “Of course.”

She circled him, gliding a hand down his waistcoat, until she stood rather between James and her husband. “Kiss me –” she tapped the side of her neck, “– right here.” 

James could not help himself; his gaze flickered to meet that of Thomas over Miranda’s shoulder. Thomas seemed far more at ease than he had a right to be; though James reflected that this was almost always the case with the nobleman. With an almost imperceptible nod, he encouraged James; so the Lieutenant, feeling strange but grateful that the Hamiltons were skilled at directing him that he need not lead the way himself, leaned in and pressed his lips to her neck. 

Miranda sighed, as though she had been waiting for this all day; James kept a light hand at her shoulder, the other cupping the opposite side of her neck, and brushed over her skin with his lips as he knew she liked him to do. She tasted of perfume, something floral and lush, and he pressed his lips lower, dotting several kisses down the side of her neck. He could feel the pulse beneath her skin thrumming as her hand gripped his waistcoat; behind her, there was a sound of fabric rustling which he could not place until he opened his eyes faintly, nipping her skin, and realized that Thomas was unpinning Miranda’s bodice. A sudden heat of realization flooded through James at the very non-innocence of this act, and he took a moment to breath warmly against Miranda’s neck. Her unoccupied hand lifted to the front of his waistcoat during this pause, unfastening his buttons one by one. For a minute or three this was the three of them: Thomas drawing the fastening pins out from the edges of Miranda’s bodice and nipping her right earlobe; Miranda with her neck arched and lovely gentle hands undoing James’ buttoned front; James kissing the left side of Miranda’s throat and cupping her maroon-clad shoulder. 

Finally both buttons and pins were undone, and Miranda pushed the waistcoat off of James’ shoulders with all of her usual eagerness, eliciting a faint smile of familiarity. She took it upon herself to unhook her earrings and unfasten her necklace next, handing both of these to James and instructing him to return them to her vanity. In the meantime Thomas helped her out of her vivid gown until she stood in just lace-trimmed chemise, mules and stockings. As James stepped back near them, Miranda had moved to start unfastening her husband’s waistcoat as well; when he was close again, she smiled at him. 

“Would you help me, James?”

A thrill travelled from his spine low through to his stomach. He took her place to finish unfastening Thomas’ waistcoat, feeling his eyes on him, altogether very aware of his breath, which felt shallow and warm and _present_. Thomas’ hand lifted to caress his cheek, and he leaned into the touch, feeling it steady his movements; after a moment, Thomas moved to steadily unknot James’ cravat, the two of them undressing each other in silent camaraderie. Miranda, who had left the two of them to flit to her vanity, was unpinning her hair, and by the time both James and Thomas had successfully relieved each other of a garment, her tresses cascaded loose and shining down her shoulders. Both James’ and Thomas’ gazes were drawn magnetically as she moved back towards them. It did not matter whether both of them shared an attraction for women; Miranda’s beauty was undeniable and riveting. Her skin glowed no longer from rouge but warmth and energy – her dark eyes glimmered, her interest was palpable. 

James was struck by the firm feeling that he was very, very lucky, and did not doubt that her husband beside him likely was feeling the same.

Miranda kissed Thomas first, elegant hand cupping his jaw. James noted with curiosity that Thomas’ returning kiss was sweet but chaste. Soon he was unable to observe anything else, however, for Miranda had turned to kiss him – she tasted like marzipan and sugars and cream, and her loose hair dangled, brushing his face. They had never kissed as much as he and Thomas. Miranda tended to prefer other body parts, and this therefore felt novel, though not unenjoyable. She was always sweet and tender. 

Her free hand was curved at James’ neck, and after a moment she was withdrawing, and James realized that with both hands she was purposefully guiding him towards Thomas, and vice versa. His breath stopped until their foreheads met, and he was forced to meet Thomas’ arresting blue eyes, which darted faintly, looking back at him from beneath dusky blond eyelashes. Thomas tilted his head away briefly to glance at his wife. 

“Are you sure?” he murmured softly, and James wondered why he asked. Hadn’t it been Miranda that had requested this…?

“Yes,” answered Miranda, and she shifted around them to crawl onto the bed itself after kicking off her mules, drawing up the hem of her shift for ease of access as she knelt, watching them. But then Thomas was kissing him and James failed to see or think of anything else.

His heart was beating faster than it had since the first time with Thomas, or perhaps ever, something he attributed to the heightened sense of anticipation and awareness elicited by Miranda’s presence. But Thomas’ teeth were at his lower lip and that never failed to thrill and loosen him, and Miranda had given her permission—her directive, even. So he let his hands find Thomas’ waist, twisting in his shirt and keeping him close, parting his lips and savoring his partner’s tongue, as the room seemed warm and dizzy. 

A sigh from the bed distracted him, and James paused mid-kiss, dragging his lips to nip at Thomas’ jaw instead, that he might glance aside. The sound had come from Miranda, who had hiked up the skirt of her chemise to pleasure herself, long hair drawn over her shoulder and fingers rubbing swift circles, watching them. James could feel himself swelling in his breeches. Miranda had done this before for him, but this was different. The other times, she had been putting on a show, or had beseeched his attention to her breasts or throat to add to her pleasure. This time, it seemed as though she was aroused by the mere sight of Thomas and himself. James wasn’t sure exactly how or why that felt more titillating, but it did. He brushed his lips over Thomas’ jaw slowly, feeling the other swallow, and kept his eyes on Miranda, captivated by her dark eyes and the heat they sparked. 

Thomas’ broad hand found James’ hair, twining itself in his queue. He leaned forward to murmur into James’ right ear: 

“You can leave bruises this time.”

James could physically feel the catch in his breath, fingers tightening reflexively in the fabric of Thomas’ shirt. After the first night, he had been more careful not to leave marks anywhere visible on Thomas, as the other had done for him; it was too much of a risk, in James’ opinion. Still, the memory of Thomas’ purple, mauled neck had haunted him since, eliciting equal parts shame, pride, and sensual pleasure. He wondered why this occasion warranted different rules, entertaining for a moment the idea of Thomas explaining away to anyone who asked, ‘It was my wife’s birthday yesterday,’ with that sly smile of his. It would not be a lie, but it would like as not be James’ tooth marks on his skin, not his wife’s; visible remnants of passion. 

If the sight of Miranda touching herself had not been enough to thicken him in his trousers, this notion certainly was. James’ teeth sought Thomas’ neck, finding his pulse and tightening into a bite, suckling the skin there. Thomas let out a breathy vocalization in response, and his lower hand fled to James’ hip, clumsily tugging out the hem of his shirt from his waistband. James did the same, although his grip had already loosened Thomas’ shirt already; between fevered kisses, each helped the other out of his blouse until they were bare chested, facing one another and heaving. Thomas traced his fingers down James’ chest as he often did, dragging along his coppery red hairs—he, James knew, was decorated much more sparsely. Then, swallowing, he turned to his wife.

“How would you have us, my sweet?”

For a moment James had forgotten he was not in some filthy, succulent dream concocted by his own libido. Flushing faintly at having got caught up in his own enjoyment, he followed Thomas’ gaze. Miranda paused her ministrations, fingers draping lazily, though she did not remove her hand from her crotch. 

“Take off your stockings, dear,” she ordered her husband. “Not you, Lieutenant. You keep yours on.”

James was certain he was blushing, and ducked his gaze to avoid the blatant curiosity Thomas wore as he looked between the two of them. This, too, was not new for Miranda; she often professed to admire his shapely calves and had asked him before to keep his stockings on when they fucked, calling him ‘pretty.’ Apparently, she did not do this with her husband. 

Thomas sat on the edge of the bed, tugging off the long white stockings. James was about to be grateful for his lack of commentary, but thought so too early, for he soon mused out loud, with an air of bemusement that James knew was hiding cheek, “I had no idea my wife admired your stockinged legs so, James. I ought to be jealous; she does not pay nearly as much attention to mine.”

James considered punishing them both with an embarrassed pout and leaving, but knew he never would. The Hamiltons, after all, loved to tease. And he, God save him, loved the Hamiltons. 

“That’s because yours are altogether too long,” retorted Miranda, who had at last dropped her hand and given up to scoot herself over to the side of the bed as well, wrapping her own thighs around Thomas from behind and dropping her chin on his shoulder. “There is far too much of them. I’d rather chop them off altogether and make it so that I don’t have to strain my neck to kiss my husband.”

“That’s what beds are for,” said Thomas, unfazed, and playfully tossed his remaining stocking at her face. She wrinkled her nose and bit his ear, and he laughed. James felt enraptured watching them, enamored with their relationship as much as he was with their individual persons; but he too was soon given a directive by the lady of the house. 

“Fetch me that glass of wine, James, won’t you, dear, since my husband does not appear to be drinking it?” 

James nodded, retrieving the glass and bringing it to her; she took long swallows at once, letting a drop escape the corner of her lips and dribble down. Instinctively he reached to brush it away, and she caught his thumb with her teeth, then sucked on the end of the digit with an impish grin. James swallowed, neck warm. Had Thomas told her that he liked that? It seemed not, as she soon dropped it and kissed her husband’s cheek, taking another draught of the liquid. Thomas smiled, leaning back against her. 

“Get yourself another glass, Lieutenant McGraw,” said Miranda after spending a moment simply resting against her husband. “We are celebrating, after all.”

James’ lips twitched. “As you wish, my Lady.” He went to pour the third glass of the day, bringing it back over to find Miranda tilting her own glass against the mouth of her patient husband, who humored her by taking a sip. James resisted a fond chuff at the scene, taking a sip of his own wine instead. Once Miranda seemed satisfied with her husband’s participation, she held the glass back out to James, who belated realized that he was meant to take it and return it to the table; swiftly, he did so. Apparently he had been elected butler for this event. He supposed he did not hold it against her. After all, this ‘celebration’ was usually between husband and wife. At once he felt rather self conscious of his own presence there, and paused to take another swallow of his own wine before setting that glass back down too and returning to loiter awkwardly beside the bed. 

At James’ return, Miranda detangled herself from Thomas, who smiled up at him. (He allowed a small smile back, rarely able to resist him.) She sat back on her knees, weight against her calves and heels tucked underneath her, and patted the bedspread beside her. “Lieutenant,” she said, “be a good man and come kiss me, won’t you?”

“... Yes, ma’am.” 

Not for the first time today, James was reminded of how grateful he was that Miranda so naturally took charge of social situations, for this would undoubtedly be far more difficult to maneuver without her unrepentant graces. He maneuvered onto the bed, shifting until he knelt beside her where she had patted. He leaned in to kiss her, but was stopped with a gentle intervention of fingers, held palm out in a sign to halt. Her eyes, like brown glass, glittered warmly in amusement. 

“Not there,” she said. She gestured to her collar instead. “Here.”

James paused, then shifted himself to the right, resting a hand on her thigh and leaning in to trace his lips across her clavicle. She tilted her head the other direction, and, needing no instruction, Thomas clambered in, kissing her lips. She buried her fingers in James’ hair to keep his attentions close, other hand draped around her husband’s shoulder to keep balance. With both husband and wife’s mouths occupied by one another, punctuated only by Miranda’s soft exhalations, this felt almost too quiet; but it was also somehow more stable and less dizzying. James methodically and tenderly laid kisses and sweet suckles across Miranda’s fair and lovely sternum, Thomas at her mouth, both peppering her with attention from either direction—the adoration that she, as the day’s celebrity, deserved. 

At some point Miranda pushed down the neck of her shift, withdrawing her hand from James to lift one breast from its trappings beneath the fabric, and gently pushed his head towards it; he lavished the soft and heavy flesh with open mouthed kisses and wrapped his lips around her nipple, teasing it with his tongue the way he knew she liked. With quiet pants of pleasure she guided Thomas down now to her neck, though after moments of this she became impatient and shooed both of them away temporarily so that she could tug off the chemise entirely. The garment was lobbed to the floor on the other side of the bed, and James leaned back to admire her form, now properly exposed. That she was beautiful there was no doubt; more so, she was beautiful in a way that surpassed the standards of what might be called lovely. She was elegant, yes, but neither timid nor restrained; fair of complexion, yet exuded warmth, and with a small freckle here or there to match her dark hair. Her hips were rounded outwards and thighs soft and breasts little yet swelling, shoulders broad and sloping, everything about her a beauty that craved tenderness and belied obedience. This exquisite mare soon scolded his idle looking, however:

“This would be much more efficient if the two of you were also undressed, you know.”

Thomas chuckled softly at her forwardness, not as prone to consternation as James was. He stripped himself and then James, whose cursed hands were fumbling at his breeches again, until all three of them were naked save for two pairs of stockings. The heavy pregnancy of awkwardness and uncertainty returned to tickle James’ chest like a plague, and he wet his superficially dry lips, waiting for something to happen and excessively aware of the air on his bare skin, which no longer seemed overwarm and now just felt exposing.

To James’ surprise, Thomas was the first to speak, and to address him, rather than his wife. He was inclining his head towards James and speaking softly, as though to give the illusion of privacy. 

“Are you alright, James? What would make you most comfortable?”

James blinked twice and flitted his gaze between Thomas and Miranda, who was watching her husband silently. “I – I don’t know. Whatever is wished, I shall do.”

Thomas did not seem to respond to this; instead, he kissed him, and James felt a steadying tendril of desire at once. It was disallowable that Thomas always had his effect on him, but allowed or otherwise it was the inevitable end. Though he did not wish to admit it, the nerves that still buzzed within him were desperate for anchor, and it was Thomas who best lulled them. As though he knew this as well, Thomas deepened the kiss, wrapping his arm around James’ back; James lifted his hand to the other’s hair and tangled his fingers in the short locks there, sliding his tongue into Thomas’ mouth like a country that craved peace. With long square fingers Thomas guided James properly onto the bed again, drawing James’ head slightly to the side. He did not understand why until he felt a different hand on his length – Miranda, circling her gentle digits around his shaft and squeezing softly. He let out a ragged exhalation against Thomas’ mouth, and when Miranda bowed to wrap her lips around the head of his cock, the exhale became harsher and louder, soon muffled by Thomas’ teeth nipping his lower lip. 

Miranda, unlike Thomas, enjoyed giving head to cock, and though their positioning could not have been considered ideal, she was nevertheless teasing and fervent in her ministrations on James’ dick, using both wringing hand and suckling mouth to bring him to full hardness. Thomas had been devouring James’ tongue, but with respect to the inconvenience of their physical arrangement, soon gave this up to nip up the side of James’ neck instead, culminating with his humid breath and tongue at his sensitive ear, leaving James’ jaw slack and nerves ringing with arousal. His hands curled uselessly at both partner’s necks, warm and heady with pleasure, seemingly unable to figure out whose name to cry out as he instead groaned halfways: “ _Thom_ – mm, Mir _and_ – ahh, fuck, yes.”

Soon Miranda seemed satisfied with the state she had worked James into, and rose up to kiss him on the mouth; she tasted like him, now, tang and sweat and sex and still that faint tinge of marzipan that hadn’t quite been masked. James was finding it altogether difficult to be self-conscious at this point, nor proper, and hungrily licked into her mouth, his left hand finding her breast and groping, squeezing the flesh and drawing a moan from the back of her throat. She encircled her arms around his neck and arched her torso, ‘walking’ herself backwards on her knees between wet kisses so that she might reach closer to the pillows, then released him to maneuver herself to lay properly back, supported at an angle by the many pillows at the head of the bed, and legs long and splayed carelessly, one bent at the knee, no longer folded under her. Her hands stayed with James, however, gliding over his shoulders and biceps, then his chest and ribs, before finding his hips and guiding him towards her, bidding him move until he was straddling her figure. Her hair was fanned out against the pillows, some tendrils waving together with damp sweat, and her gaze bespoke warmth and affection and desire. 

“Fuck me, James,” she said breathlessly, and James’ pulse thudded in his ears, wanting nothing less than to obey. Was he mad? Was it by any means ethical to fuck a man’s wife right in front of him? But it seemed the question was fruitless. Even as Miranda took James’ hand with her left and led it down to press his thumb at her clitoris, her other hand was stretching over his shoulder and behind him to her husband. Thomas, James realized, was taking her fingers in his mouth, and the sight of this was nothing short of inflammatory. 

Thomas, removing his wife’s hand from his lips briefly, pressed his mouth then to James’ ear again, as though sensing his hesitation. 

“My wife has spoken,” he said, low and wry. “It’s quite alright. I should never tire –” and here he bit James’ earlobe salaciously, eliciting a gasp– “of watching you.”

Miranda’s thumb found Thomas’ lower lip again, reclaiming his attentions, and her watchful eyes sought James’. “Lieutenant…?”

Rather than lend voice to his distrustful thoughts, which were far too rapid at the moment to catch anyway, James leaned forward to capture Miranda’s lips in a kiss. He let the hand that wasn’t supporting his weight rub in circles around her clit and then lower to stroke between her folds, finding her slick and wet; with two fingers, he pressed inside and earned a sharp sound of encouragement from his mistress. He repeated this motion, withdrawing and stroking, then pressing further in, a few times, until she was pressing her pelvic bone up against his palm. At last she clawed her hand down his chest.

“Lieutenant James McGraw, it is my birthday today and you shall do as I wish; and what I wish right now is for you to properly _fuck_ me already.” 

There was something velvety and ferocious with need in her voice that James had not yet ever dared deny, nor wished to. He kissed her neck, her collar, her breast, and with his hand guided his erect prick between her legs, pressing the head amid her lips and pushing at her entrance. 

“ _In_ ,” Miranda demanded throatily, and James obeyed, sliding his girth deep inside her, rocking his hips to envelop himself to the hilt, breathless with the warmth pulsating around his organ; sometimes, when with Thomas, he forgot how _good_ this was too, to be inside of someone, wrung by pleasure, tactile sensation all around his cock. His mouth was at the curve of her throat, and he licked her salty skin, tasting the remnants of her perfume; her left hand clutched the nape of his neck and dug in with her fingers. In James’ ear, she said again: “ _Fuck_ me, James,” and he did, rutting his hips to rock deeper in and back, again, again, and _yes_ that felt good – he knew he was making noise, soft half-moans grunts of pleasure, while her nails scraped across his back and she sighed exaltations, occasionally encouraging him to go ‘More’ or ‘Harder, James’ or ‘Yes, oh there, _James_.’ 

Thomas, far from being left out of the game, had taken it upon himself to fondle and mouth his wife’s breasts, which James imagined he knew as well as himself were sensitive and tender. There was hardly space for the two of them over Miranda’s slender torso so James had to arch himself faintly; when he could no longer do this and needed to support himself on both hands again, Thomas moved out of the way and shifted his attention to James, clumsily mouthing along his torso even as his body rocked with movement. He would switch between soft bites on his ribs and pinching the nipple nearest to him (which nearly always provoked a particularly hard thrust and thus sounds from Miranda and James alike), or attending James’ ear with wet, cruelly teasing tongue or a stream of sweet, filthy exhalations praising and tantalizing him – ‘You both look so beautiful like this’ or ‘I’d like to fuck you like this, thoroughly and deep like you are inside her, you’re so tight, you know, James, is that how it feels? Wet and tight?’ or something senseless like ‘I love you, I want you so badly, dear, don’t stop.’ He was like the hedonistic soundtrack to the wet dream, except it was reality, and Thomas was really at his ear murmuring astonishing dizzying things as he made love to the Lady Miranda. Had Thomas ever been this dirty with him alone? He couldn’t remember, but saw no point in trying to at the moment; his awareness was utterly consumed the flesh and sounds and nails of his bedmates. 

It was Miranda that intervened before James could lose himself entirely; she pushed herself up to a better sitting position, dropping a hand between them to stay his thrusts. Dazed, he swallowed and willed himself to stop moving, blinking his eyes open at her. Immediately James congratulated himself for the well-rewarded decision to take in and appreciate the vision – Miranda’s hair was mussed, chest heaving and flushed, breasts bruised and lips red; she was utter temptation. But temptation spoke, lifting her hand to brush her knuckles across his cheek. 

“James,” she said when her breath had steadied enough. “When you bed my husband, do you fuck him or does he fuck you?”

It was the first time either of them had verbalized between the two of them what was going on between Thomas and James. He felt off-kilter from this realization, failing to process for a moment. Fucking… husband… Soon Miranda sighed, shaking her head. 

“It doesn’t matter. Either way.” She reached up to tuck a lock of escaped hair behind James’ ear, and an intrusive thought buzzed in the forefront of his mind that his hair must look disastrous. He shook it away, blinking at her. Thomas was silent beside both of them, observing, his fingers lightly tracing his wife’s thigh. She continued:

“I’d like you to make love with him now, as you do. In whatever manner.” She paused, then shifted to support herself still better, leaning in so that her lips hovered at James’ ear. Quietly, tone soft enough that even her husband might not here, she said to him, “Do this for me, please, James. I’d like my husband to have pleasure in this today, too. Don’t protest – just obey. I want this.” 

James looked at her silently once she withdrew; Thomas, brows knit, rotated his gaze between the two of them, though he knew better than to ask. Miranda’s hand caressed James’ cheek once more, and he at last nodded, feeling as though he had been bestowed with a strange and somehow illicit responsibility. He did not think Miranda’s motivations or feelings on the matter could be unpacked in this moment; he could simply do as she requested. So he shuffled back, withdrawing completely from his place between her legs (this made a slick sound at which Miranda hummed), and turned to Thomas inquiringly, begging permission with his gaze. 

Thomas’ hands cupping James’ face said that permission was granted, and the tenderness of his lips when he kissed him whispered something like _always_ with the endorsement. At once James remembered the inflaming words Thomas had been whispering in his ear not moments ago, and felt tendrils of warmth spread out from his chest to his fingertips, thrumming. Thomas’ lips seemed to instinctively know and follow the humming pleasure; he kissed him deeply on the mouth, suckling his tongue, then wetly at the edge of his lips, at the corner of his jaw, at the pulse point of his neck, the crook of neck and shoulder, then nosing up behind his ear, trailing lips and tongue there, all while James’ hands aimlessly explored his chest, his shoulders, his waist, one settling on burying in his hair, and the other dropping to grip Thomas’ length, squeezing it. When had these movements become so natural, so well-rehearsed, as smooth as lines from a well-played actor’s lips, as slick as a droplet of oil on a waterskin? This ease could never be brought to the light of day, but here, in their bedroom, the three of them, it was exactly as designed. 

James could feel Miranda’s eyes like candles, alit and glowing close enough to feel the heat; her hand was between her legs again, and he felt pleasantly undone. He was a puppet not in the sense that he was being controlled, but that his limbs were disjointed and everything glided, loose, unrestrained—then Thomas had his tongue in his ear again and everything was tense, taut, titillating. 

There was a sound of wood scraping, which James couldn’t be bothered to investigate because now Thomas’ hand was around him as well, both of them stroking the other with puffs of panted breath. It turned out he needn’t seek out the source, however, as it became clear in a moment when Miranda shuffled over to the two of them, kissing both of them on the cheek and offering a stoppered container of oil. Feeling bold all of a sudden, James snatched the container before Thomas could. Thomas’ eyes did not betray surprise, but James suspected that was because they were too clouded with lust to express much else. His lips, at least, did express curiosity; they hung parted and red, and his throat worked in a swallow. 

James devoted his efforts to free the obstinate cork from the bottle, then coated his fingers, rolling them against each other curiously. This was a better substance than substitutes, and while Miranda had used it before with him, she generally applied it herself. Between his digits now it was slippery in a velvety sort of way, slick and serous. James lifted his eyes to meet Thomas’ and lowered his fingers between his own legs, stroking there behind his scrotum and spreading a coat of lubricant over already sensitive skin. Thomas’ gaze was transfixed, heavy and deep with broad black pupils. Flooded warm with the image, James closed his eyes, breathing out, and shifted his oiled fingers to approach himself from behind, sliding down the cleft of his buttocks, pressing at his entrance, pushing in the pad of a finger. He had only done this to himself like this a few times, not including when he was alone, but he very much liked the way that Thomas looked at him while doing so. His hand was at a slightly uncomfortable angle, but he pushed his first digit properly inside himself anyway, only realizing he had been biting back his breath when he released it. His finger curled and stretched, getting used to the feel of something inside of him before drawing out to plunder himself with another. 

The sensation of being watched by both of the Hamiltons, and the pregnant lack of words or sounds from them other than shallow breath and the faint rustling of bedsheets as Miranda shifted to a more comfortable position, was provocative in a way James could not quite understand, but felt nonetheless. He didn’t know what was visually appealing, so he didn’t try to look any certain way; instead he just pleasured himself, with the side effect of preparation for what would come next, or perhaps prepared himself, with the side effect of pleasure. A side chamber of his mind ruminated on the fact that he had come to associate rectal buggery with erotic enjoyment, that he had turned sodomite, that it was uncouth and unholy, but the thin voice was not very loud over the sensation of slickened fingers inside him. Perhaps it would come back later. That was fine; he was busy now. 

Eventually he withdrew; the ring of muscles felt stretched and prickled with a heat similar to burning but less fervent. He wiped the residue from his fingers on Thomas’ bare chest. Thomas, who had restoppered the oil and set it safely aside, looked down at the movement with a wry expression. 

“Rude,” he commented simply, and James opened his mouth to retort with he knew not what, but before he could come up with something Thomas had surged forward to rob a kiss, warm and throbbing and hungry, and James tangled eager fingers in the barely-grippable blond locks dressing Thomas’ skull. Soon Thomas reached down to stroke him, and James expressed his pleasure with nails dragged down his back and with teeth on lips and skin and neck, where he fastened them in a sort of voracious encouragement, while Thomas’ hand that wasn’t teasing him slid around to grip his ass, kneading the flesh there and finger pressing in the cleft. Shortly James drew away from him, now impatient to be had, and shifted that his back might face the other’s front, falling down on his hands and knees. At this sight, Miranda made a vocalization, and belatedly, James realized she was beckoning him; he allowed himself to be drawn forwards. She pushed herself forward enough to press her lips by his ear once more – never again would he be able to have any lips by his ear without thinking of a dozen filthy pleasures from this day – and said:

“I want you to fuck me with your tongue while my husband fucks you.” 

It was very, very difficult for James to remember how to feel awkward when he was so incredibly, incredibly turned on. He didn’t have to say anything; he was certain his expression was blown dark and hungry as Thomas’ had been watching him finger himself. Instead he just lowered himself, obedient as a dog, and dipped his head between her spread legs, licking a stripe between them; her lips were swollen and tender and spread already from his own cock in them so recently. With one hand he groped blindly behind himself to find Thomas’ hand, which he guided to his hip. Letting out a long, sensational sigh, Miranda said to her husband, “I believe the Lieutenant would like you to fuck him now, dear.” 

With the first oiled thrust James felt his entire body rock, his face pressed hard against Miranda’s cunt; she let out a startled sound, though not pained. Nevertheless James did his best to be careful with his teeth, and in the meantime clenched his fingers in the bedsheets to brace himself, the sounds of his own pleasure muffled by Miranda’s thighs and her wet folds. 

Having Thomas inside him was something that James could never get used to – not in the sense of strangeness or unfamiliarity, for their coupling was more familiar every time, but in the sense of an inability to be underwhelmed by the physical feeling. It was always, always staggering the amount of sensation stemmed from being fucked by him, and the discomfort or pain, when it existed (which was less and less as he found more comfortable positions and learned to recognize an appropriate level of preparation), was always, always superseded by an utterly fulfilling _fullness_ , and rawness, and stimulant spark of intimacy that never failed to take his breath away. Fortunately, he didn’t need breath, as his mouth was rather occupied attempting to maintain some sense of grace despite the rollicking of his form, lips sealed over Miranda’s opening, tongue sliding along and teasing her or pressing inside her warm, wet snatch in between stuttering gasps. 

The three of them were a mess of sounds and calamitous yet harmonious movement; Miranda’s long slender fingers in James’ hair, Thomas’ teeth at his back, James’ white knuckles amid the sheets. Miranda was no less vocal than she had been earlier, but was less verbal, expressing her pleasure with fewer words and greater gasps, fingers twisting, and Thomas echoed his wife in inarticulate breathy exaltations. James’ own moans were hummed or panted against Miranda, forced out in heavy exhalations as he lifted to lightly suck her clitoris, or muffled by the lips framing her slit as he buried his tongue inside her. 

When Miranda came at last, it was with an exultant cry and her thighs clamped around James’ head, rendering him momentarily smothered. Her muscles shuddered and squeezed with climactic pleasure and James could taste the rush of warm, tangy juices on his tongue; he struggled to inhale through his nose, twinging with his own illicit enjoyment at the sharp sting in his scalp where Miranda had dug her grip. After the wave had subsided, Miranda let her legs fall shakily to the side, releasing him; he rolled aching shoulders and lifted his head a bit to lick his lips, allowing the beginnings of a wry smile. She was unspeakably comely splayed on the pillows, hair dark and damp and messily strewn, chest heaving, beaded with sweat, flushed and glowing. Thomas was still to the hilt within James, having halted his movements for the pleasure of his wife; now, with James a little more upright, he kissed his partner’s neck, panting faintly. 

Miranda was not completely spent, however. (James secretly doubted whether she possessed the capability.) Steadying her shallow breathing with soft hums of remnant pleasure, she stretched, catlike and lithe, and rubbed between her legs as though to capitalize on the warmth and sensation that still lingered there. She opened her brown eyes in time to see James turn to kiss her husband, whose right hand had slid down to grip James’ length and was stroking him with tantalizing laziness. 

“Boys,” said Miranda, somehow managing to be sharp and commanding at the same time as weary. James broke obediently from the kiss, though a more mischievous Thomas only dropped his mouth to the slope of James’ neck, eyes still on his wife. “Don’t you dare finish outside of me, either of you. Come here.”

Now Thomas was paying attention, as was James, wondering the precise nature of her desires. The two men paused and carefully shifted, Thomas withdrawing from where he had been sheathed inside of James, and James hissing an audible groan at the movement, the sensitive nerves within him throbbing. Miranda licked her lips, either to wet them or out of anticipation. She sat up and scooted herself to one side of the mattress, patting the other. 

“James,” she directed, “Lay back here.”

Though his rear end ached and his arousal was almost painfully erect, begging for completion, James obeyed without protest; Miranda, in the meantime, instructed her husband to re-fetch the oil James had used to open himself. She straddled James’ legs, facing away from him, then neatly unstoppered the bottle and slicked her fingers to rub at her already wet entrance. James watched her, though from this angle he could mostly just see her long, lovely back and the dark hair she had tossed over one shoulder. The singular ability of women to recover from orgasm so soon in time for the next was a marvel he rather envied, though at the moment his curiosity as to her intentions for her husband’s and his own climaxes outranked that novelty. With one hand stroking between her thighs, the other lifted to guide Thomas’ fingers to her breast, lifting her chin to meet him in a kiss. James let his own hand drape beside his head, feeling certain that Miranda would scold him for touching himself and unwilling to interrupt the moment of affection between husband and wife. 

He soon did not have to worry about that, however. Miranda had shifted back, reaching between them to wrap a slippery hand around the base of James’ erection, and he let out an anticipatory breath. Her coy smile reached over her shoulder as she watched him, guiding the head of his cock between her legs and slowly sinking down on the shaft, breath caught as her eyelids fluttered closed with pleasure. James bit his own tongue to stifle a vocal reply. From this position, Miranda had all the control; her thighs wrapped around him, her pelvis free to rock at a pace of her suiting, her back with that small dark mole arching, brunette tresses swept out of the way. She wasn’t moving yet, just apparently enjoying the girth inside her; the stillness was excruciating to James, whose prick was eager to move and thrust and reach its too-much-delayed conclusion. 

But she wasn’t done yet, James realized, because her fingers had moved down to her legs again. She had dipped them again in the oil and was rubbing, which meant that her fingers were caressing _him_ now, the base of his shaft, cruelly insufficient contact. Her digits stretched around him still inside her, and he panted, wishing he could see through to her expression, her motive. Shortly she lifted her hand and reached for her husband’s arousal, something just far away enough from his eyes that James was able to see it. Thomas’ hand was lax at his side and his eyes closed, puffing soft exhalations of pleasure as his wife’s hand wrapped around him. It was incredibly odd to be witness to this scene while his own cock was buried within Miranda’s cunt, and more so to almost envy it, ever desirous to be the one making Thomas’ face look like that. Then he understood what Miranda was doing. 

_Oh_. Oh. 

Curse her hungry sensuality and her ambition and curse the warmth that threatened to eat him like a fever at the thought. James dropped his head back against the pillow and Miranda shifted on top of him, pressing down—he gave up a soft groan—and spreading her legs more broadly while two more knees encroached along James’ thighs: Thomas’. James could no longer see her coating her husband’s length in oil but he could hear it, and he could feel the overwhelming heat exuding from the three bodies in such close alignment. There were murmurings, between kisses – “Are you certain this is… anatomically – hm – wise?” He could _feel_ the head of Thomas’ cock prodding against the base of his. His breath was nowhere to be found. His higher faculties in general were nowhere to be found. 

Miranda shifted again, rising off of James. He drew his head back forward to see what was the matter. Thomas’ incredibly composed face peered at him from over his wife’s shoulder. 

“We are … rearranging,” he said, as though this were a puzzle rather than a practically-fictitiously filthy fuck. 

Then there was a gasp from Miranda, the one James knew well: she always made it when a cock first entered her. It must be Thomas’ this time. Privately, he thanked the Lord on behalf of Miranda’s slender frame that neither he nor her husband were excessively endowed, though Thomas was admittedly the smaller of the two. Thomas and Miranda were now pressed together, both on their knees, a tangle just above him, trapped as he was between legs and behind. It occurred to him that his position, while likely the more comfortable, was far from advantageous in terms of sight and movement. Then Miranda’s hand found him again and nothing occurred to him except the words ‘dear _Lord_ ,’ because she was once more guiding the head of his cock to her entrance but this time Thomas was already within her, and both of their lengths slid tightly against one another as with the help of the oil she stretched herself enough to slowly sit on top of him, her cunt swallowing him, both pricks now snugly buried inside her in a sensation that James could not possibly replicate with words or paints or any sort of art, except to say that it was utterly obscene and dearly reminiscent of bliss. Miranda’s exhalation was like that of a kitten or a mare or something soft and straining, and in this note she begged them to “ _Move_ , dear God,” and they did. 

There was very little any one of them could do individually, but every attempted thrust or rolling hips from one party inevitably collided both others, and thus clumsily and deliciously they fucked, each bump or sensation producing thrice as much in return. Miranda was leaned back against James, Thomas arched over Miranda, their pricks rutting together in the taut and wet squeezing canal with no room to slide deeper but every pleasure at each movement. Miranda’s hand between herself and her husband pressed frantic circles at that sensitive nub of nerves and each of them were a tumble of exultant pants and half-finished moans and scorching, sweat-slick skin. One of Miranda’s hairs had gotten stuck in James’ mouth and he attempted to pull it out; Thomas reached to do so for him, balanced on one hand, and then found James’ grip with his free fingers, lacing their hands together and pinning his wrist against the pillow with their fingers’ tangled embrace. James closed his eyes, lifting his other hand to drag nails down Thomas’ side, though everything was quite too pleasurable and overwhelming to put much fervor into the scratch. Instead he could only pant and halfheartedly rut and feel the inescapable build-up of stimulation. 

They came in this order: Miranda, Thomas, James, though with little delay between them. It was no wonder that Miranda, so thoroughly plundered with twice the phallus, would soon reach her peak; Thomas, encouraged by her quivering legs and the way her pelvis bucked uncontrollably, was close to follow. James could feel his finishing thrusts, quick and rough and deep inside against his own prick, and then the hot liquid seed spilling, and then the withdrawal of Thomas’ cock allowing him the physical access to rut upwards with his hips at last, reckless and wanton, until he, too, stuttered past the edge and cavorted in blissful climax. For moments they were a wet, overheated, heaving tangle of limbs and skin and throbbing pulses desperately racing, muscles weak and twitching as though a marathon had been run, which it truly had. It took a minute for any one of them to gather the capacity to roll off of another, and with effort they detangled themselves – mostly – to lay back each of them, side by side in breathless exhaustion across a damp and rustled bedspread. 

“Dear God,” said James after several moments, lightheaded and finding his own voice dry and strange to his ears. 

Miranda laughed, forceful and shallow and bubbling. Then she laughed some more, then Thomas joined her, sparse and breathless, then James, scraping and deep and riotous. Neither of them could expend much air but they laughed, drained, spent, weak in a most delightful way. It was another long minute or three of cooldown before any of the three could manage more words; this time, it was Thomas:

“Happy birthday, my sweet,” he managed, then shifted up on one elbow with some effort to kiss his wife on the lips. James managed to force his gaze open properly to witness Miranda’s smile, broad and unfettered, her cheeks the color of a rose with the splendor of a sunset. She looked like she ached with satisfaction. She tilted her head now to the other side, where James lay, and he kissed her in turn. 

“Happy birthday, my Lady,” he echoed. She hummed in contentment, draping her arms across the two of them though each inch of contact was scalding; their bodies were still running on high. 

“Thank you,” she said, licking her lips and stretching her head back, her legs, looking altogether like a sculpture, if a sculpture could be very undone. “Both of you. This was a gift I doubt will soon or ever be outdone.” 

James would have laughed, but he had no energy left in him; everything was warm and buzzing or numb or sleepy or aching or charged with the memory of pleasure. He doubted very much that Miranda and Thomas felt anything but the same. 

_What a terrible idea this was,_ he thought all at once, gazing up at the ceiling. _How terribly stupid, and foolish, and dangerous it was to meet these two._ The idea could summon no semblance of dissatisfaction, however. He wouldn’t be torn away from this moment for the world. It was terribly stupid, and foolish, and dangerous, and absurd, but true – he loved them both, loved them dreadfully; he loved them. Everything was ridiculous and exhausting and a terrible mistake and he loved them and that seemed to outweigh it all. 

_How funny Fate is_ , came a last, half-formed thought, and then he could no longer keep his eyes open, or his mind in order, and sleep was warm and sticky and all-encompassing; a tender and welcoming dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually spent about two hours or so researching gowns in the early 1700s for this. It was very frustrating because the gowns Miranda wears onscreen are NOT the main styles described to be in fashion at the time, so I had to do a lot of poking around to figure out how the bodice would be arranged, etc etc to accord with canonical fashion as well as historical fashion. Her dress, btw, probably resembles [this](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/80403?img=1) in a different color. All of this research, of course, was ultimately used in 1.5 lines, and therefore meaningless to you. I am sharing it here purely because I suffered to acquire it and want that struggle to be recognized.


End file.
